Qass uJ A \ Q 

Book . C^' 



THE EASTERN CHURCH 



By the same Author. 



THE UNITY OF EVANGELICAL AND APOSTO- 

LICAL TEACHING; Sermons preached for the most part in Canterbury 
Cathedral. 2nd Edition. Post 8vo. 7s. 6ri!. 

SINAI AND PALESTINE, in Connexion with their 

History. 6th Edition. Plans. 8vo. 16s. 

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS j 

with Critical Notes and Dissertations. 2nd Edition. 8vo. 18s. 

HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OE CANTERBURY. 

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ADDRESSES AND CHARGES OF THE LATE 

BISHOP STANLEY. With a Memoir. 2nd Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 



LECTUEES ON THE HISTORY OF 



THE EASTERN CHURCH 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
ON THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



if 

BY AETHUE PENEHYN STANLEY, D.D. 

EEGIUS PEOEESSOB OE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOEY EN THE TJNIVEESITX OF OXEOED, AND 
CANON OE CHEIST CHT7ECH 



LONDON 

JOHN" MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
J. H. & JAMES PARKER, OXFORD 
1S61 



The right of translation is reserved 



BOITDOir 

PSINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AXD CO. 
KEW-STEEET SQUABE 



PREFACE. 



The Introduction to this volume consists of three 
Lectures delivered in the spring of 1857, when I 
entered upon my duties as Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History. They are reprinted, partly for the sake of 
presenting them in a more correct form than that 
in which they first appeared, partly for the sake of 
exhibiting the general plan under which will be 
comprised any special Lectures like those which form 
the bulk of the present volume. 

It is my hope, if I may look so far forward into 
the future, to fill up two of the departments in- 
dicated in the sketch of the first Introductory Lec- 
ture. I have already devoted a large share of each 
Academical year to Lectures on the History of the 
Jewish Church, which I trust at no very distant 
period to publish; and it is my intention to ap- 
propriate at least a portion of my remaining time to 
the History of the Church of England. 

Meanwhile, it seemed to me that a course of in- 
struction in the History of the Eastern Church would 
not be unfitting. The general reasons for this selec- 
tion are given in the Lectures themselves. The 

A 3 



vi 



Preface. 



subject is one in which I had long felt an interest, 
and which may, perhaps, gain from being approached 
through a point of view more general than that 
usually taken in the learned works that have been 
devoted to its consideration. 

In the choice and the treatment of the epochs of 
Eastern History which appear in the following pages, 
I have been guided by the necessities of the case, 
as well as by the wish to exemplify some of the 
principles laid down in my Introductory Lectures. 
The form of Lectures 1 lent itself to this mode of 
handling the subject; and, if the result should bear 
the appearance of a didactic rather than of a his- 
torical work, I have endeavoured to rectify this 
defect by the references to authorities which begin, 
and by the chronological tables which end, the 
volume. 

It so happens that one of these epochs (the 
Council of Mcsea), though receiving much attention 
from French and German writers, has never been 
thoroughly described by any English historian. In 
this instance, therefore, I have gone into every detail. 
I take this opportunity of mentioning some of the 
subordinate topics to which allusions have been 
made throughout the Lectures, and which might 
well be followed up, as supplemental to those leading 
events to which I confined myself. The Councils of 

1 Most of the Lectures are printed (with necessary corrections 
and abbreviations) as they were delivered. The First and Eighth 
are condensed from two courses of Lectures. 



Preface. 



vii 



Ephesus and Chalcedon have never, as far as I 
know, been described with all the details which 
could be given. The life of Chrysostom has never 
been fully told. The Iconoclastic controversy, the 
dispute on the Light of Tabor, and the history of 
the final rupture between the Greek and Latin 
Churches, would furnish materials for curious inquiry. 
A continuous history of Greek theology, from its 
peculiarities in the Eastern Fathers of the third and 
fourth centuries, through the schools of Constanti- 
nople, down to its last great effort in the revival 
of letters in the West, and its influence on the 
Cambridge Platonic divines, of the Church of Eng- 
land, and, through them, on John Wesley, in the 
eighteenth century, is still, I believe, a desideratum. 

In regard to the relation of Christianity to the 
other religions of the East, which must be considered 
as one of the most important branches of the subject in 
connection with the fortunes of Eastern Christendom, 
I have been restrained, by my personal ignorance 
of the languages and customs of most of those 
countries, from offering more than a few general 
remarks on the one most directly connected with 
the Christian Church and the Eastern branch of it, 
namely, Mahometanism. But, if I may be permitted 
to refer to the labours of the eminent scholar who 
has already done so much for elucidating in this 
country the nature of Oriental religions, it is to be 
hoped that Professor Max Miiller may be induced to 
give us the benefit of his genius and learning in 

A 4 



viii 



Preface. 



drawing forth the mutual relations of the religions of 
Asia and the Christian faith to each other, in their 
past history and in their future prospects. 

The Lectures on the Russian Church are intended 
as an introduction to a sphere of history which 
probably will, in each succeeding generation, grow 
in importance. If this volume should fall into the 
hands of any of those Russians whose hospitality I 
enjoyed during my stay at Moscow in 1857, I trust 
that they will pardon, not only the inaccuracies in 
detail which a stranger can hardly escape, but the 
divergence of the general point of view from which a 
Western European must regard the Church and State 
of Russia. There is an expressive proverb written 
over the house of Archbishop Plato in the forests of 
the Troitzka Convent, " Let not him who comes in 
" here carry out the dirt that he finds within." If this 
precept is not altogether practicable for an impartial 
traveller, I can yet truly say that my chief impres- 
sions are those of gratitude for the intelligence and 
courtesy with which I was received, both among lay- 
men and ecclesiastics. It is a pleasure to me to 
hope that those kind friends at Moscow, to whom 
I would especially commend this part of my volume, 
may receive it as a token of sincere hope and good 
will for their country in this great crisis of its social 
existence, and in its entrance on the thousandth 
anniversary of the foundation of their Empire. 

Christ Church, Oxford : 
March 6. 1861. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTKODUCTION. 
I. 

THE PROVINCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

Page 

Description of Ecclesiastical History . . . xxiii 

I. Its first beginning . . . . . xxiv 

The History of Israel, the first period of the History 

of the Church ..... xxv 
Its peculiar interest . . . . xxvi 

Its religious importance . . . xxvii 

II. The History of Christendom, the second period of 

the History of the Church . . . xxix 

Relations of Civil and Ecclesiastical History . xxx 

Points of contact between them . . xxxiii 

Points of divergence .... xxxv 
Stages of the History of the Christian Church . xxxvi 

1. The Transition from the Church of the 

Apostles to the Church of the Fathers . xxxvi 

2. The Conversion of the Empire. The Eastern 

Church ..... xxxviii 

3. The Invasion of the Barbarians. The Latin 

Church ..... xxxviii 

4. The Reformation .... xxxix 
The French, German, and English Churches xli, xlii 

Conclusion. The late Professor Hussey . . xlii, xliii 

General Chronological Table of the Periods of Church 
History . ... . . . xliv 

II. 

THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

- Dryness of Ecclesiastical History . . . xlv 

Remedy to be found in a Historical View of the Church . xlv 



X 



Table of Contents. 



Page 

I. History of Doctrines 
II. History of Creeds and Articles 
III. History of Events and Persons 
General Study 

Detailed Study of great Events 

The Councils 
Detailed Study of great Men 
Neander and his History 
Distinction of Characters 
Uses of this Method : 

I. Gradation of Importance in Eccle- 



siastical Matters . . . liii 
II. Combination of Civil and Ecclesias- 
tical History . . . liv 

III. Caution against Partiality . . liv 

IV. Reference to Original Authorities . Ivi 

Graves of the Covenanters . lvii 

The Catacombs . . . lviii 
Special Opportunities for this Study : 

I. In the Church of England . . . lix 

II. In the University of Oxford . . Ix 

III. In active Clerical Life . . . lxi 

Conclusion ...... Ixii 



xlvii 
xlviii 
xlviii 
xlix 
xlix 
1 
1 
li 



III. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



I. Importance of Historical Facts in Theological 

Study . . . . . . . . lxiv 

II. Importance of a General View of Ecclesiastical 

History . ... . . . Ixvi 

III. Use of the Biography of good Men . . lxviii 

IV. Use of the general Authority of the Church . Ixx 
V. Better understanding of Differences and of Unity. Ixii 

VI. Evidence rendered to the Truth of Christianity . lxxiii 

VII. Lessons from the Failings of the Church . . lxxiv 
VIII. Comparison of Ecclesiastical History with the 

Scriptures ..... lxxv 

IX. Future Prospect of the History of the Church . Ixxviii 

Indications in History .... lxxix 

Indications in Scripture . . . Ixxx 

Conclusion ...... Ixxxii 



Table of Contents. xi 



LECTURE T. 

THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

Tage 

Authorities for its History ..... lxiii 

I. Its General Divisions .... 3—20 

1. The National or Heretical Churches of the 

remote East .... 5—14 

a) Chaldcean or Nestorian Churches . . 6 

Christians of S. Thomas . . 7 

b) The Armenians .... 7 

c) The Syrians . . . .9 

Jacobites — Maronites . . 9, 10 

d) The Copts . . . . 10,11 

The Abyssinian Church . 12—14 

2. The Greek Church . . . 15—18 

Representative of Ancient Greece . .15 

Of early Greek Christianity . .16 

Of the Byzantine Empire . .17 

Constantinople . . . .18 

Church of Greece . . . .18 

3. Northern Tribes . . . . 18—20 

a) Danubian Provinces. — Bulgaria. — 

Servia. — Wallachia and Moldavia. 

— The Raitzen . . .19 

b) The Church of Russia . . .20 

II. Historical Epochs . . , . . 21 — 23 

1. Period of the Councils . . . .21 

2. Rise of Mahometanism . . . .22 

3. Rise of the Russian Empire . . .23 
III. General Characteristics . . . 23 49 

1. Speculative tendency of Eastern Theology . 24 
Rhetorical as opposed to logical . . .27 
Metaphysical as opposed to legal . . 27 

2. Speculative tendency of Eastern Monachism . 30 

3. The Eastern Church stationary . . 31 sq 

In the Doctrine of the Sacraments . . 33 

Baptism . . . . .34 

Confirmation . . . .34 

Extreme Unction . . .35 

Infant Communion . . .36 

4. Absence of Religious Art in the East . . 35 

5. The Eastern Church not Missionary . . 40 

But not persecuting . . . .41 



xii 



Table of Contents. 



Page 

6. Eastern Theology not systematised - . 42 

7. Eastern Hierarchy not organised . . .43 

Independence of Laity . . .44 

Study of Scripture . . . .45 

Absence of a Papacy . . . .46 

Married Clergy . . . .48 

IV. Advantages of a Study of the Eastern Church . 48 

1. Its Isolation from Western Controversy . , 49 

2. Its Competition with the Latin Church . .51 

3. Its Illustration of the Unity of Western Christen- 

dom . ..... 54 

4. Its Advantages over the Western Church . 56 

5. Its Use to the Church of England . . 59 
Note on the Doctrine of the Single and Double Procession . 61 



LECTURE II. 

THE COUNCIL OF NKLEA. A.D. 325. 

The Authorities for the History . . . .63 

I. The Oriental Character of the Council . . 65 

II. Its general Interest . . . . .69 

1. Historical Importance of Arianism . .71 

2. Importance of the Period . . .75 
The Nicene Council the first example of a General 

Council . . . . . .76 

a) In its deliberative Character . . 77 

b) In its Imperial Character . . .80 

c) In its mixed Character . . .85 
III. Peculiarities of the History . , . . 90—93 

1. Contemporary Sources . . . .90 

2. Sources on both Sides . . . .91 

3. The Legends . . . . .92 

4. The Characters . . . . .93 



LECTURE III. 

THE MEETING OP THE COUNCIL. 

The present Appearance of Nicsea . . . .96 

I. The Occasion of the Council . . . .96 



Table of Contents. 



xiii 



Page 

1. The Arian Controversy . . . .96 

Its abstract dogmatism . . .96 

Its Polytheistic Tendencies . . .97 

Its Vehemence . . . .98 

2. Intervention of the Emperor . . .99 
II. The Selection of the Place . . . .101 

Its Situation . . . . . .102 

Its Name . ... . . .103 

III. The Time of the Council . . . .104 

IV. Its Assemblage . . . . .105 

Mode of travelling . . . . .106 

Numbers . . . . . .108 

V. Diversity of Characters . . . .109 
First Place of Meeting . . . .111 

1. Alexandrian Deputies . . . .112 

Alexander . . . . .113 

Athanasius . . . . .114 

Arius . . . . .115 

Coptic Hermits . . • .117 

2. Syrian and Assyrian Deputies : 

Eustathius of Antioch . . .117 

Eusebius of Cassarea . . .118 

Macarius of Jerusalem . . .119 

Deputies from Mesopotamia and Armenia . 119 

3. Deputies from Asia Minor and Greece : 

Leontius of Caasarea . . . 121 

Eusebius of Nicomedia . . .122 

Alexander of Byzantium . . .123 

Acesius the Novatian . . .123 

Marcellus of Ancyra . . .124 

Spyridion . . . . .124 

Nicolas . . . . .127 

4. Deputies from the West : 

Theophilus the Goth . . .127 

The Roman Presbyters . . .128 

Hosius of Cordova . . . .129 

VI. Preliminary Discussions . . . ,130 

The Theologians and the Layman . . .131 

The Philosopher and the Peasant . . .132 

Principle of Free Discussion . . .134 



xiv 



Table of Contents. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL. 



Page 

Arrival of the Emperor . . . . .137 

Complaints of the Bishops . . . . .137 

Hall of Assembly . . . . .139 

Entrance of Constantine ..... 141 

The President . . . . . .142 

His Speech ....... 145 

The formal Opening . . . . .146 

The Eebuke to the Bishops .... 147 

Theological Divisions . . . . .150 

The Thalia and Creed of Arius . . . .152 

Legend of S. Nicolas . . . . .153 

Creed of Eusebius of Caesarea .... 155 

The Homoousion 158 
The Controversy on ousia and hypostasis . . .161 

Creed of Nicaea . . . . . .164 

The Subscription of Eusebius of Caesarea . . . 167 

of Eusebius of Nice-media . . 168 

Banishment of Arius . . . . . 171 

Finality of Nicene Creed ..... 174 

Broken at Chalcedon . . . . .176 



LECTURE V. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. 



I. The Paschal Controversy . . . .178 

1. Decree of Settlement . . . .179 

2. Paschal Table . . . . .182 

3. Festal Letters of Alexandria , . .183 
II. The Melitian Controversy . . . .185 

HI. The Canons . . . . . .189 

Apocryphal Canons . . . .189 

Reception of the Book of Judith . . . 190 
Twenty genuine Canons .... 191 

1. On Clerical Discipline . . . 191—195 

On Provincial Councils . . .191 

On Episcopal Ordination , . .191 



Table of Contents, 



X t 



Page 

On Metropolitan Privileges . . .192 

On Jerusalem and Csesarea . . .193 

On Translation . . . .194 

On the Power of Deacons . . ,195 

2. On Public Worship . . . .195 

3. On Clerical Manners . . . 196, 197 

Intercourse with religious Women . .197 
Protest of Paphnutius . . .197 

4. On Cases of Conscience .... 199 

Amnesty . . . . .200 

Official Letters and Final Subscription . . . 200 

Legends . . . . . . .201 

Imperial Banquet ...... 202 

Rebuke to Acesius . . . . . . 203 

Farewell of the Emperor . . . . . 205 

Honours paid to Nicsea ..... 207 

Departure of the Bishops ..... 207 

Reception of the Decrees ..... 208 

Legends of Rome and Constantinople . . 208, 209 

General Conclusion : 

1. Diversity of Incidents .... 210 

2. Effect of Individual Characters . . .211 

3. Contrast of Legendary and Historical Accounts . 211 

4. Settlement of Theological Controversies . .212 



LECTURE VI. 

THE EMPEROR CONST ANTINE. A.D. 312-338. 



Historical Position of Constantine . 217 
His Appearance . . . . . .219 

His Character . . . . . =220 

I. The First Christian Emperor . . . .221 

His Conversion ..... 222 

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge . . .225 

His ambiguous Religion .... 227 

His Christian Legislation .... 229 

II. Founder of the Established Church . . .231 

His Devotion and Preaching . . . 232 

III. His last Visit to Rome . . . . .234 

Crimes of the Imperial Family . . . 236 



xvi 



Table of Contents. 



Page 

1. Foundation of the Papal Power at Rome . . 238 



Absolution of Hosius . . . 239 

of Sylvester . . . 240 

Donation . .... 241 

2. Foundation of Constantinople . . . 243 

Its Situation ..... 245 

Its Importance in Ecclesiastical History . 248 

3. Foundation of the Holy Places in Palestine . 249 

Pilgrimage of Helena .... 249 

4. Restoration of Arius .... 250 
Baptism and death of Constantine . . . 253 



LECTURE VII. 

ATHANASIUS. A.D. 312-372. 



I. Athanasius, as representing the Church of Egypt . 263 

His Appearance ..... 263 

His Childhood . . . . . .264 

Archdeacon of Alexandria .... 265 

Consecration as Bishop .... 266 

Importance of the See of Alexandria . . . 268 

1. Conversion of Abyssinia .... 269 

2. Egyptian Hermits . . . . 270 

3. National feeling of Egypt . . . 272 

Scene of Athanasius's return to Alexandria . 273 

II. Contests of Athanasius with the Emperor . . 276 

His Isolation, " contra mundum" . . . 276 

1. Independence against the Imperial Power . 277 

2. Personal, not Ecclesiastical, Opposition . . 280 

3. Arian Persecution .... 281 

Scene in the Church of S. Theonas . . 283 

His General Character .... 284 

His Versatility ...... 284 

His Humour ...... 285 

Magical Reputation ..... 287 

III. Athanasius as a Theologian .... 289 

1. Common to East and West . . . 290 
Athanasian Creed .... 290 

2. Founder of Orthodoxy . . . .291 
Polemical Vehemence .... 292 
Defence of the Doctrine of the Incarnation . 293 



Table of Contents. xvii 



Page 

3. Discrimination of essential and unessential . 296 
In the Monastic Disputes . . . 296 

In Clerical Discipline . . . 297 

In the Use and Disuse of the Homoousion . 297 
In the Controversy respecting "Person" and 

"Substance" , . . .299 

Council of Alexandria . . . . 299 

Relations with S. Basil ..... 301 



LECTURE VIII. 

MAHOMET ANISM IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

Prefatory Remarks on our Knowledge of Mahometanism . 304 

I. Its Connection with Western Churches . . 306 

II. Its Connection with Eastern Churches . . 307 

with their Rise . . .307 
and their Ruin .... 308 

III. Point of Contact in History . . . .310 

1. Christians at Mecca . . . .310 

2. Sergius, Monk of Bostra . . . .310 

3. Apocryphal Gospels . . . .311 

4. Christian Doctrines and Legends . . 312 

IV. Comparison with Sacred History . . .313 

with Ecclesiastical History . .314 

V. The Koran compared with the Bible . . .315 

1. Resemblances of Form .... 315 

2. Contrasts between them, as regards 

a) Uniformity — Variety . . .317 

h) Narrowness — Diffusion . . . 319 

c) Purity of Text — Variations . .321 

d) Monotony — Multiplicity . . 322 

e) Exclusiveness — Expansiveness . . 323 
VI. Comparison of the Ecclesiastical System of Mahome- 
tanism with that of the Christian Church . . 323 

1 . Its Relations to Protestantism . . . 324 

2. Its Relations to Catholicism . . . 327 

3. Its Oriental Character . . . . 330 

In its worse and better Qualities . 330 — 333 



a, 



xviii 



Table of Contents, 



LECTURE IX. 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

Page 

Authorities . . . . . * . 336 

L Importance of the Church of Russia as an Eastern 

Church . . . . . .337 

II. Its Parallel with Western Christendom . . 340 

III. Its National Character . . . . .341 

Periods of its History ..... 344 

Its Foundation, a.d. 988—1250 . . .344 

Missions of Constantinople .... 345 

Conversion of Russia . . . . . 347 

1. Legendary Account — S. Andrew, S. Antony 347, 348 

2. Historical Account .... 349 
Vladimir . . . . .351 

Missions to convert him . . . 352 

Mission from him to Constantinople . . 355 

The Church of S. Sophia . . . .357 

Baptism of Vladimir at Kherson . . . 359 

of the Russians at Kieff . . . 360 

1. Influence of Constantinople . . . 360 

2. Veneration of Sacred Pictures . . . 362 

3. Effects of Authority .... 365 

4. Translation of the Bible into Sclavonic . . 367 
Early Christian Princes of Russia .... 370 
Will of Vladimir Monomachus . . . . 372 



LECTURE X. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



The Middle Ages of Russia, a.d. 1250—1613 . . 377 

Moscow . . . . . . . 378 

I. The Czar . . . . . .379 

Cathedral of the Archangel at Moscow . .381 
Ivan the Terrible ..... 382 

His Position in Ecclesiastical History . . 382 

II. The Metropolitans . 388 
Their general Character .... 389 

Martyrdom of S. Philip . . . .391 



Table of Contents. xix 



III. The Monastic Orders .... 392 

1. The Hermits . . . . .393 

Basil — Nicholas of Plescow . . . 395 

2. The Monasteries . . . . .397 
IY. The Invasion of the Tartars, a.d. 1205—1472 . . 398 

The Troitzka Monastery .... 400 

S. Sergius ...... 402 

Battle of the Don . . . . ' .402 

V. The Invasion of the Poles, A.D. 1606— 1613 . . 404 

Siege of the Troitzka .... 406 

Election of the Romanoff Dynasty . . . 407 



LECTURE XI. 

THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



The Eastern Reformation ..... 409 

Nicon, his Career, a.d. 1652—1684 . . .412 

I. His Appearance and Character . . .413 

II. His Reforms . .... 417—423 

Opposition to them .... 424 — 428 

II. His Personal History ..... 429 

Friendship with the Czar Alexis . . . 430 

Quarrel . . . . . .433 

Retirement ...... 435 

Convent of the New Jerusalem . . . 436 

Return . . . . . .440 

Resignation . . . . . . 441 

Trial . . . . . .442 

Exile . . . . . .443 

Return . . . . * . .447 

Death and Funeral ..... 449 



LECTURE XII. 

PETER THE GREAT AND THE MODERN CHURCH OF RUSSIA. 

His Historical Importance, a.d. 1672 — 1725 . . 453 

His Appearance and Character . . . 454 — 457 

a 2 



XX 



Table of Contents. 



His Connection with the Eastern Church 
His Religion 
His Death-bed 
His Reforms 

Abolition of the Patriarchate 

The Rascolniks (Dissenters) 

The Starovers (Old Believers) 

Their Grievances 

Representatives of Old Russia 

Settlement at Moscow 
Modern State of Russian Church, a.d. 1725 

Demetrius of Rostoff 

Ambrose of Moscow 

Plato of Moscow 

Innocent of Kamtschatka 

Philaret of Moscow 

Professor at the Troitzka Convent 

Conclusion 



1860 



Page 

460 
461 
464 
467 
468 
471 
471 
472 
476 
478 
483 
486 
486 
487 
489 
489 
489 
491 



Chronological Table 
Index 



505 
515 



AT END OP VOLUME. 



Plan of the Patriarchal Cathedral of Moscow. 
Map of the Eastern Churches. 



ERRATA. 

Page 63, line 9, for "Harris" read "Harris Cowper." 

71, Hue 3, for "have never penetrated" read "have never been incor- 
porated." 

106, note, for " Heinicher" read " Heinichen." 

177, note, for "Lincoln Sermons" read "Lincoln's Inn Sermons." 

189, line 20, for "volumes" read "hooks." 

294, line 2 from bottom, insert 1 after "position," 

312, line 7, for "belief of the West" read "unbelief of the West." 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ' 

STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOKY. 

IN THREE INAUGURAL LECTURES 
Delivered in the Lent Term of 1857. 



3 



INTRODUCTION. 



i. 

THE PROVINCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 

When" Christian the Pilgrim, in his progress towards the 
Celestial City, halted by the highway-side at the Palace of 
which the name was Beautiful, he was told, that " he 
" should not depart till they had shewn him the rarities 
u of that place. And first they had him into the study, 
66 where they shewed him records of the greatest an- 
" tiquity : " in which was " the pedigree of the Lord of 
(< the hill, the Son of the Ancient of Days. . . . Here 
(S also were more fully recorded the acts that he had done, 
" and the names of many hundreds that he had taken into 
(i his service ; and how he had placed them in such habi- 
ee tations, that could neither by length of days nor decays of 
(e nature be dissolved. Then they read to him some of the 
ee worthy acts that some of his servants had done ; as how 
i( they had subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
se tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
" the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of 
" weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and 
" turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Then they read 
ce again in another part of the records of the house, how willing 
" their Lord was to receive in his favour any, even any, though 
66 they in time past had oifered great affronts to his person 

a 4 



xxiv 



The Province of 



Introd. 



" and proceedings. Here also were several other histories 
" of other famous things, of all which Christian had a view ; 
" as of things both ancient and modern, together with pro- 
" phecies and predictions of things that have their certain 
" accomplishment, both to the dread and amazement of ene- 
"mies, and the comfort and solace of pilgrims." 

These simple sentences from the familiar story of our 
childhood contain a true description of the subjects, method, 
and advantages of the study of Ecclesiastical History, which 
I now propose to unfold in preparation for the duties which 
I have been called to discharge. And with this object, it 
will be my endeavour in this opening Lecture to reduce to 
order the treasures which were shown to solace and cheer 
the Pilgrim on his way, by defining the limits of the province 
on which we are about to enter. 
Beginning I. First, then, where does Ecclesiastical History com- 
siastical mence ? Shall we begin with the Reformation — with the 
History. framework of religion with which we ourselves are specially 
concerned ? Or with the new birth of Christendom, pro- 
perly so called, in the foundation of modern Europe ? Or 
with the close of the first century — with the age of those to 
whom we accord the name of our " Fathers " in the Christian 
faith? In a certain sense, each of these periods may be 
taken, and by different classes of men always will be taken, 
respectively, as the boundaries of the history of the Church. 
But, if we are fixing, not merely the accidental limits of 
convenience, but the true limits involved in the nature of the 
subject ; if Ecclesiastical History means the History of the 
Church of God ; if that history is one united whole ; if it 
cannot be understood without embracing within its range 
the history of the events, of the persons, of the ideas which 
have had the most lasting, the most powerful effect on every 
stage of its course ; we must ascend far higher in the stream 
of time than the sixteenth, or the fifth, or the second cen- 
tury,— beyond the Reformers, beyond the Popes, beyond the 
Fathers. 



I. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



XXV 



.... Far in the dim distance of primeval ages, is dis- Call of 
cerned the first figure in the long succession which has never 
since been broken, — in Ur of the Chaldees, the Patriarchal 
chief, followed by his train of slaves and retainers, surrounded 
by his herds of camels and asses, moving westward and south- 
ward he knew not whither, — the first Father of the uni- 
versal Church, — Abraham, the Founder of the Chosen 
People, the Father of the faithful, whose seed was to be as 
the sand upon the sea-shore, as the stars for multitude. 

Earlier manifestations doubtless there had been of faith 
and hope ; in other countries also than Mesopotamia or 
Palestine there were yearnings after a higher world. But 
the call of Abraham is the first beginning of a conti- 
nuous growth ; in his character, in his migration, in his 
faith was bound up, as the Christian Apostle well describes, 
all that has since formed the substance and fibre of the 
history of the Church. 

From this point, then, we start, and from this shall be The His- 
prepared to enter on the history of the people of Israel, as jg^e^the 
the true beginning and prototype of the Christian Church, first^ period 
So in old times it was ever held ; to the Apostolic age it siastical 
could not be otherwise ; even Eusebius, writing for a special Hlstor ^- 
purpose, is constrained to commence his work by going back 
(almost in the words with which. I opened this Lecture) to 
" records of the greatest antiquity, showing the pedigree of 
" the Son of the Ancient of Days," both divine and human ; 
and, in spite of the ever-increasing materials of later times, 
the elder dispensation has been included, actually or by 
implication, in some of the greatest works on Ecclesiastical 
History. So it must be in the nature of the case, however 
much, for the sake of convenience or perspicuity, we may 
divide and subdivide what is in itself one whole. Speaking 
religiously, the history of the Christian Church can never 
be separated from the life of its Divine Founder, and that 
life cannot be separated from the previous history, of which 
it was the culmination, the explanation, the fulfilment. 



xxvi 



The Province of 



Introd. 



Speaking philosophically, the history of the religious thoughts 
and feelings of Europe cannot be understood without a full 
appreciation of the thoughts and feelings of that Semitic 
race which found their highest expression in the history of 
the Jewish nation, 
its peculiar Nor is it only for the sake of a mere formal completeness 
that we must thus combine the old and the new in our his- 
torical studies. Consider well what that history is, — what a 
field it opens, what light it receives, what light it gives, by the 
mere fact of being so regarded. So far from being exempt from 
the laws of gradual progress and development to which the his- 
tory of other nations is subject, it is the most remarkable exem- 
plification of those laws. In no people does the history move 
forward in so regular a course, through beginning, middle, 
and end, as in the people of Israel. In none are the be- 
ginning, middle, and end so clearly distinguished, each from 
each. In none has the be^innino; so natural and so im- 
pressive a preparation as that formed by the age of the 
Patriarchs. In none do the various stages of the history 
so visibly lead the way to the consummation, which, how- 
ever truly it may be regarded as the opening of a new order, 
is yet no less truly the end of the old. And nowhere 
does the final consummation more touchingly linger in the 
close, more solemnly break away into new forms and new 
life, than in the last traces of the effects of the Jewish race 
on the Apostolic age. 

The form, too, of the sacred books of the Old Testament 
is one of all others most attractive to the historical student. 
Out of a great variety of documents, sometimes contem- 
poraneous, sometimes posthumous, sometimes regular nar- 
ratives, sometimes isolated fragments, is to be constructed 
the picture of events, persons, manners most diverse. The 
style and language, of primitive abruptness, pregnant with 
meaning, are eminently suggestive. The historical annals 
are combined with rich and constant illustration, from what 



E. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xxvii 



in secular literature would be called the poets and orators 
of the nation. There is everything to stimulate research, even 
did these remains contain no more than the merely human in- 
terest which attaches to the records of any great and ancient 
people. 

But the sons of Israel, as we all know, are much more Its reli- 
than this. They are, literally , our spiritual ancestors i their portance in 
imagery, their poetry, their very names have descended to us 



connection 
with Chris- 



toiy. 



their hopes, their prayers, their psalms are ours. In their tian His- 
religious life we see the analogy of ours ; in the gradual, 
painful, yet sure unfolding of divine truth to them, we see 
the likeness of the same light dawning slowly on the Christian 
Church. They are truly (t our ensamples." Through the 
reverses, the imperfections, the sins of His ancient Church, 
we see how " God at sundry times and in divers manners 
" spake in time past to our fathers," bringing out of manifold 
infirmity the highest of all blessings, as we trust that He may 
still, through like vicissitudes, to the Church of the present 
and to the Church of the future. 

Political principles, we are told, are best studied in the 
history of classical antiquity, because they are there dis- 
cussed and illustrated with a perfect abstraction from those 
particular associations which bias our judgment in modern 
and domestic instances. And so, in a still higher degree, 
in the history of the Jewish Church, we find the principles 
of all religious and ecclesiastical parties developed, not amidst 
names and events which are themselves the subjects of 
vehement controversy, but in a narrative of acknowledged 
authority, free from all the bitterness of modern watchwords, 
and yet with a completeness and variety such as within 
the same compass could be found in no modern church or 
nation. 

Reproduce this history with all the detail of which it is 
capable. Recall Abraham resting under the oak of Mamre ; 
J oseph amidst the Egyptian monuments ; Moses under the 



xxviii 



The Province of Introd. 



cliffs of Horeb ; Joshua brandishing his outstretched spear ; 
Samuel amidst his youthful scholars ; David surrounded by 
his court and camp ; Solomon in his Eastern state ; the wild, 
romantic, solitary figure of the great Elijah ; u the goodly 
" fellowship " of gifted seers, lifting up their strains of joy 
or sorrow, as they have been well described, like some great 
tragic chorus, as kingdom after kingdom falls to ruin, as 
hope after hope dies and is revived again. Represent in all 
their distinctness the several stages of the history, in its 
steady onward advance from Egypt to Sinai, from Sinai to 
the Jordan, from the Jordan to Jerusalem, from the Law 
to the Judges, from the Judges to the Monarchy, from the 
Monarchy to the Prophets, from the Prophets to the great 
event to which, not the Prophets only, but the yearnings of 
the whole nation had for ages borne witness. 

Let us not fear lest our reverence should be diminished 
by finding these sacred names and high aspirations under the 
garb of Bedouin chiefs and Egyptian slaves and Oriental 
kings and Syrian patriots. The contrast of the ancient' 
inward spirit with the present degraded condition of the 
same outward forms is the best indication of the source 
whence that spirit came. Let us not fear lest we should, 
by the surpassing interest of the story of the elder Church, 
be tempted to forget the end to which it leads us. The 
more we study the Jewish history, the more shall we feel 
that it is but the prelude of a vaster and loftier history, 
without which it would be itself unmeaning. The voice of 
the old dispensation is pitched in too loud a key for the 
ears of one small people. 1 The place of the Jewish nation 
is too strait for the abode of thoughts which want a wider 
room in which to dwell. The drama, as it rolls on through 
its successive stages, is too majestic to end in anything short 
of a divine catastrophe. 

1 I am indebted for this expression to a striking sermon of 
Professor Archer Butler (vol. i. p. 210). 



I. Ecclesiastical History. xxix 

This is a brief but necessary sketch of the first part of 
our subject. This is the ancient period of Ecclesiastical 
History. Its full treasures must be unfolded hereafter. Its 
accessories belong to other departments of study. The cri- 
tical interpretation of the sacred books in which the history 
is contained falls under the province of General Theology 
and Exegesis; the explanation of the languages in which 
they are written I gladly leave to the Professor of Hebrew 
and the Professor of Greek. But the history itself of the 
chosen people, from Abraham to the Apostles, belongs to 
this Chair by right 1 ; and, if health and strength are spared 
to me, shall also belong to it in fact. 

II. The fortunes, however, of the seed of Abraham after End of 
the flesh form but a small portion of the fortunes of his de- Ecclesiasti- 

scendants after the spirit : they are, as I have said, but the cal His- 
tory. 

introduction to the history which rises on their ruin. With 
the close of the Apostolic age the direct influence of the 
chosen people expires ; neither in religious nor in historical 
language can the Jewish race from this time forward be said 
to be charged with any divine message for the welfare of 
mankind. Individual instances of long endurance, of great 
genius, of lofty character, have indeed arisen amongst them 
in later times ; but, since the days when the Galilean 
Apostle, S. John, slept his last sleep under the walls of 
Ephesus, no son of Israel has ever exercised any widespread 
or lasting control over the general condition of mankind. 

We stand, therefore, at the close of the first century, like Beginning 
travellers on a mountain ridge, when the river which they SanEe!" 
have followed through the hills is about to burst forth into clesiastical 

. . History. 

the wide plain. It is the very likeness of that world-famous 

view from the range of the Lebanon over the forest and , 

city of Damascus. The stream has hitherto flowed in 



1 I believe that I am correct in stating that in all other 
European universities, where a Chair of Ecclesiastical History 
exists, the Jewish history falls within its province. 



XXX 



The Province of 



Introd. 



its narrow channel, its course marked by the contrast 
which its green strip of vegetation presents to the desert 
mountains through which it descends. The further we ad- 
vance the more remarkable does the contrast become ; the 
mountains more bare, the river-bed more rich and green. 
At last its channel is contracted to the utmost limits ; the 
cliffs on each side almost close it in ; it breaks through and 
over a wide extent, far as the eye can reach, it scatters a 
flood of vegetation and life, in the midst of which rise the 
towers and domes of the great city, the earliest and the latest 
type of human grandeur and civilisation. 

Such is the view, backwards and forwards, and beneath 
our feet, which Ecclesiastical History presents to us, as we 
rest on the grave of the last Apostle and look over the 
coming ages of our course. The Church of God is no 
longer confined within the limits of a single nation. The 
life and the truth, concentrated up to this point within the 
narrow and unbending character of the Semitic race, have 
been enlarged into the broad, fluctuating, boundless destinies 
of the sons of Japheth. The thin stream expands and loses 
itself more and more in the vast field of the history of the 
world. The Christian Church is merely another name for 
Christendom ; and Christendom soon becomes merely ano- 
ther name for the most civilised, the most powerful, the 
most important nations of the modern habitable world. 
Relations What, then, it may be asked, is the difference hence- 
Ecciesi- and forward between Civil and Ecclesiastical History ? How far 
toiy° al HlS " are duties °f tn i s professorship separable from those of 
the Chair of Modern History ? 

To a great extent the two are inseparable ; they cannot be 
torn asunder without infinite loss to both. It is indeed true 
that, in common parlance, Ecclesiastical History is often con- 
fined within limits so restricted as to render such a distinc- 
tion only too easy. Of the numerous theological terms, of 
which the original sense has been defaced, marred, and 



I 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xxxi 



clipped by the base currency of the world, few have suffered 
so much, in few has " the gold become so dim, the most fine 
" gold so changed," as in the word " ecclesiastical." The 
substantive from which it is derived has fallen far below its 
ancient Apostolical meaning, but the adjective " ecclesiastical" 
has fallen lower still. It has come to signify, not the reli- 
gious, not the moral, not even the social or political interests 
of the Christian community, but often the very opposite of 
these — its merely accidental, outward, ceremonial machinery. 
We call a contest for the retention or the abolition of vest- 
ments " ecclesiastical," not a contest for the retention or the 
abolition of the slave trade. We include in " ecclesiastical 
history " the life of the most insignificant bishop or the 
most wicked of Popes, not the life of the wisest of philo- 
sophers or the most Christian of kings. But such a limi- 
tation is as untenable in fact as it is untrue in theory. The 
very stones of the spiritual temple cry out against such a 
profanation of the rock from which they were hewn. If the 
Christian religion be a matter, not of mint, anise, and 
cummin, but of justice, mercy, and truth ; if the Christian 
Church be not a priestly caste, or a monastic order, or a 
little sect, or a handful of opinions, but " the whole con- 
« gregation of faithful men, dispersed throughout the 
" world;" if the very word which of old represented the 
chosen " people " (\abs) is now to be found in the " laity ; " 
if the Biblical usage of the phrase ei Ecclesia " literally 
justifies Tertullian's definition, Ubi tres sunt laid, ibi est 
ecclesia ; then the range of the history of the Church is as 
wide as the range of the world which it was designed to 
penetrate, as the whole body which its name includes. 

By a violent effort, no doubt, the two spheres can be kept 
apart ; by a compromise, tacit or understood, the student of 
each may avoid looking the other in the face ; under special 
circumstances, the intimate relation between the course of 
Christian society and the course of human affairs may be 



xxxii 



The Province of 



Introd. 



forgotten or set aside. Josephus the priest may pass over in 
absolute silence the new sect which arises in Galilee to dis- 
turb the Jewish hierarchy. Tacitus the philosopher may 
give nothing more than a momentary glance at the miserable 
superstition of the fanatics who called themselves Christians. 
Napoleon the conqueror, when asked on the coast of Syria 
to visit the holy city, may make his haughty reply, — " Jeru- 
" salem does not enter into the line of my operations." But 
this is not the natural nor the usual course of the greatest 
examples both in ancient and modern times. Observe the 
description of the Jewish Church by the sacred historians. 
Consider the immense difference for all future ages, if the 
lives of Joshua, David, Solomon, and Elijah had been 
omitted, as unworthy of insertion, because they did not 
belong to the priestly tribe ; if the Pentateuch had been 
confined to the Book of Leviticus ; if the Books of Kings 
and Chronicles had limited themselves to the sayings and 
doings of Zadok and Abiathar, or even of Nathan and Gad. 
Remember also the early chroniclers of Europe ; almost all 
of them at once the sole historians of their age, yet, even 
by purpose and profession, historians only of the Church. 
Take but one instance, the Venerable Bede. His ({ Eccle- 
siastical History of England " begins, not with the arrival 
of Augustine, but with the first dawn of British civilisation 
at the landing of Caesar ; and, for the period over which it 
extends, it is the sufficient and almost the only authority for 
the fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth. 

In later times, since history has become a distinct science, 
the same testimony is still borne by the highest works of 
genius and research in this wide field. Gibbon's " Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire" is, in great part, how- 
ever reluctantly or unconsciously, the history of " the rise 
and progress of the Christian Church." His true con- 
ception of the grandeur of his subject extorted from him 
that just concession which his own natural prejudice would 



I. Ecclesiastical History. xxxiii 



have refused ; and it was remarked not many years ago, by 
Dr. Newman, that up to that time England had produced no 
other Ecclesiastical History worthy of the name. This re- 
proach has since been removed by the great work of Dean 
Milman ; but it is the distinguishing excellence of that very 
history that it embraces within its vast circumference the 
whole story of mediaeval Europe. Even in that earlier 
period when the world and the Church were of necessity 
distinct and antagonistic, Arnold rightly perceived, and all 
subsequent labours in this field tend to the same result, that 
each will be best understood when blended in the common 
history of the Empire which exercised so powerful an in- 
fluence over the development of the Chris tian society within 
its bosom, whilst by that society it was itself undermined 
and superseded. And the two chief historians of France 
and England in recent times — Guizot in his Lectures on 
French Civilisation, Macaulay in his English History — 
have both strongly brought out, as necessary parts of their 
dissertations or narratives, the religious influences which 
by inferior writers of one class have been neglected, or by 
those of another class been rent from their natural context. 

Never let us think that we can understand the history of 
the Church apart from the history of the world, any more 
than that we can separate the interests of the clergy from the 
interests of the laity, which are the interests of the Church 
at large. 

How to adjust the relations of the two spheres to each Points of 
other is almost as indefinite a task in history as it is in between 
practice and in philosophy. In no age are they precisely ^^g^ 
the same. Sometimes, as in the period of the Roman asticalHis 
Empire, the influence of one on the other is more by con- t01 ^' 
tagion, by atmosphere, even by contrast, than by direct 
intercourse. Sometimes the main interest of religious 
history hangs on an institution, like Episcopacy ; on a war, 
like the Crusades ; on a person, like Luther. In some 

b 



xxxiv 



The Province of 



Introd. 



periods, as in the middle ages, the combination of the secular 
and religious elements will be effected by the political or the 
intellectual influence of the clergy, The lives of the Arch- 
bishops of Canterbury and the lives of the Prime Ministers 
of England are for five hundred years almost indivisible. 
The course of European revolution for nearly a thousand 
years moves round the throne of the Papacy. Or again, the 
rise of a new power or character will, even in these very 
ages, suddenly transfer the spiritual guidance of men to 
some high-minded ruler or gifted writer, who is for the time 
the true arbiter or interpreter of the interests and the feel- 
ings of Christendom. In the close of the thirteenth century, 
it is not a priest or a Pope, but a king and an opponent 
of Popes, who stands forward as the acknowledged repre- 
sentative of the Christian Church in Europe ; S. Louis in 
France, not Gregory IX. at Pome. In the fourteenth 
century it is not a schoolman or a bishop that we summon 
before us as the best exponent of mediaeval Christianity ; it 
is not the " seraphic " or the " angelic doctor," but the* 
divine poet Dante, who reveals to us the feelings and 
thoughts of the whole age respecting this world and the 
next. And if we pass to our own country, he must be a 
blind guide who would take us through the English Refor- 
mation without seeing on every stage of it the impress of the 
iron will and broad aims of Henry VIII. ; or who would 
portray the English Church without recognising the com- 
prehensive policy of Elizabeth. Or yet again, of all our 
brilliant English divines of the seventeenth century, there 
is not one who can be fairly said to have exercised as much 
influence over the popular theology of this nation, as has 
been undoubtedly exercised by a half-heretic half-Puritan 
layman, the author of " Paradise Xost." 

These instances indicate with sufficient precision the 
devious yet obvious path which, without losing sight of the 
wide horizon on the one hand, or without undue contraction 



I. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



XXXV 



of his view on the other, the student of Ecclesiastical History 

may safely follow. If we may for a moment return to our Points of 

former position, and imagine ourselves overlooking the between** 6 

broad expanse into which the stream bursts forth from the Civil and 
. -I ^ -i • Ecclesiasti- 

mountams of its earlier stages, our purpose henceforth will cal His- 
be, not so much to describe the products of the forest or the t0Y} ' 
buildings of the city which have grown up on the banks of 
the river, but to track the river itself through its various 
channels, under its overhanging thickets, through the popu- 
lous streets and gardens to which it gives life ; to see what 
are its main, what its tributary streams ; what the nature of 
its waters; how far impregnated with new qualities, how 
far coloured, by the various soils, vegetations, uses, through 
which they pass; to trace their secret flow, as they go softly 
through the regions which they fertilise ; not finding them 
where they do not exist, not denying their power where 
they do exist ; to welcome their sound in courses however 
tortuous ; to acknowledge their value however stained in 
their dov^nward and onward passage. Difficult as it may 
often be to find the stream, yet when it is found it will guide 
us to the green pastures of this world's wilderness, and lead 
us beside the still waters. 

Three landmarks, at least, may be mentioned, by which 
this course of Ecclesiastical History may be distinguished 
from that of history generally. 

First, there are institutions, characters, ideas, words, which 
can be traced to the religious, especially to the Christian, 
principle in man, and to nothing besides. There are virtues 
and truths now in the world, which can only be ascribed to 
the influence of Christian society : and there are corruptions 
of those virtues and of those truths, which have produced 
crimes and errors to be ascribed also, though remotely and 
indirectly, to the same source. There are events in the 
common course of history — revolutions, wars, divisions of 
races and nations — which in themselves can hardly be called 

b 2 



xxxvi 



The Province of Introd. 



religious, but which have at least one aspect distinctly 

religious. There are also institutions, customs, ceremonies, 

even vestures and forms of ritual, in which, though originally 

pagan or secular, Christian ideas have now become fixed so 

as to be inseparable from them. All these it is the task of 

Ecclesiastical History to adjust and discriminate. 

Secondly, in every age, even the worst, there have been 

beneath the surface latent elements of religious life and of 

active goodness, which it will be our duty to bring to light, 

as the true signs of a better world beyond, and of the Divine 

Presence abiding with us even here, — a Church, as it were, 

within a Church ; a " remnant," to use the language of the 

older covenant. 

Thirdly, the whole history of the Church, though usually 

flowing in the tracks marked out for it by the great national 

and geographical boundaries of the world, yet has a course, 

not always, and therefore not of necessity, identical with the 

channel of human civilisation. In the history of the Church 

as in that of the world, in the history of the Christian 

Church as in that of the Jewish, there is a distinct unity of 

parts, an onward progress from scene to scene, from act to 

act, towards an end yet distant and invisible ; a unity and 

a progress such as give consistency and point to what would 

else be a mere collection of isolated and disjointed facts. 

Stages of us then, before we conclude, briefly notice the suc- 

of e the St0iy cess ^ ve stages through which, eventually, our course of study 

Church. must lead us, and the interest especially attaching to each. 

1 The -"- ne ^ rs ^ P er i°d is that which contains the great question, 

transition almost the greatest which Ecclesiastical History has to 
from the . . J 

Church of answer, — How was the transition effected from the as:e of 

th A o 

sties to°the the Apostles to the age of the Fathers, from Christianity as 

Church of we gee j£ j n £] ie New Testament, to Christianity as we see 

the Fa- . 

thers. it in the next century, and as, to a certain extent, we have 

seen it ever since ? 

No other change equally, momentous has ever since 



I. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xxxvii 



affected its fortunes, yet none has ever been so silent and 
secret. The stream, in that most critical moment of its 
passage from the everlasting hills to the plain below, is lost 
to our view at the very point where we are most anxious to 
watch it ; we may hear its struggles under the overarching 
rocks ; we may catch its spray on the boughs that overlap 
its course; but the torrent itself we see not, or see only by 
imperfect glimpses. It is not so much a period for Eccle- 
siastical History as for ecclesiastical controversy and con- 
jecture. A fragment here, an allegory there ; romances of 
unknown authorship; a handful of letters of which the 
genuineness of every portion is contested inch by inch ; the 
summary examination of a Roman magistrate ; the pleadings 
of two or three Christian apologists ; customs and opinions in 
the very act of change ; last, but not least, the faded paint- 
ings, the broken sculptures, the rude epitaphs in the dark- 
ness of the catacombs, — these are the scanty, though 
attractive, materials out of which the likeness of the early 
Church must be reproduced, as it was working its way, in 
the literal sense of the word, <( under ground," under camp 
and palace, under senate and forum, — " as unknown, yet 
" well known ; as dying, and behold it lives." 

This chasm once cleared, we find ourselves approaching The 
the point where the story of the Church once more becomes churches, 
history — becomes once more the history, not of an isolated 
community, or of isolated individuals, but of an organised 
society incorporated with the political systems of the world. 
Already, in the close of the second and beginning of the 
third century, the Churches of Africa, now seen for a few 
generations before their final disappearance, exhibit distinct 
characters on the scene. They are the stepping-stones by 
which we cross from the obscure to the clear, from chaos to 
order. Of these the Church of Carthage illustrates the rise 
of Christianity in the West, the Church of Egypt that of 
Christianity in the East. 

b 3 



XXXV111 



The Province of 



Introd. 



2. The But the first great outward event of the actual history of 
of th^Em- tne Church is its conversion of the Empire ; and, in close 
pire ; and connection with this, its first wide sphere in the face of 

the Eastern . . . . . 

Church. mankind, is the Oriental world out of which it sprang, and 

in which the external forms of its early organisation can 
still be most clearly studied. In the usages of the ancient 
systems which have grown up on that soil — Coptic, Greek, 
Asiatic — we may still trace the relics, the fossilised relics, of 
the old Imperial Church. 1 In the period of the first Councils, 
and in some passages of the Byzantine Empire, the fortunes 
of the Eastern Church are identified with the fortunes of 
Christendom. 2 Its connection with the general course of 
Ecclesiastical History in subsequent times depends chiefly 
on two developments of religious life of a very different 
kind from each other, the rise of Mahometanism 3 , and the 
rise of the Church and Empire of Russia. 4 

With the exception of these three periods or stages, 
and viewed as part of the continuous history of the Church, 
Eastern Christianity must be considered but as the tem- 
porary halting-place of the great spiritual migration which, 
from the day that Abraham turned his face away from the 
rising of the sun, has been stepping steadily westward. 

3, The Another and a wider sphere was in store for the progress 

Latin 1 o 

Church. of the Church than its own native regions ; another and a 

nobler conquest than that of its old worn-out enemy on the 
tottering throne of the Csesars. The Gothic tribes de- 
scended on the ancient world : the fabric of civilised society 
was dissolved in the mighty crisis ; the Fathers of modern 
Europe were to be moulded, subdued, educated. By whom 
was this great work effected ? Not by the Empire — it had 
fled to the Bosphorus ; not by the Eastern Church — its 
permanent conquests were in another direction. In the 

1 Lecture I. 2 j^ ect H— VII. 

3 Lect. VIII. 4 Lect. IX— XII. 



I. Ecclesiastical History. xxxix 



Western, Latin, Roman clergy, in the missionaries who went 
forth to Gaul, to Britain, and to Germany, the barbarians 
found their first masters ; in the work of controlling and 
resisting the fierce soldiers of the Teutonic tribes lay the 
main work, the real foundation, the chief temptation of the 
Papacy. From the day when Leo III. placed the crown 
of the new Holy Roman German Empire on the head of 
Charlemagne, the stream of human progress and the stream 
of Christian life, with whatever interruptions, eddies, coun- 
ter-currents, flowed during the next seven centuries in the 
same channel. As the history of the earlier stages revolved 
round the characters of the Fathers or of the Emperors, 
so the history of the middle ages, with all their crimes and 
virtues, revolved (it is at once the confession of their weak- 
ness and their strength) round the character and policy 
of the Popes. What good they did, and what good they 
failed to do, by what means they rose, and by what they 
fell, during that long period of their power, form the main 
questions by which their claims must be tested. 

And now a new revolution was at hand, almost as terrible 4. The Ee- 
in its appearance and as trying in its results as any that had 
gone before. The fountains of the great deep were again 
broken up. New wants and old evils had met together. 
The failure of the Crusades had shaken men's belief in holy 
places. Long abuses had shaken their belief in Popes, 
bishops, monasteries, sacraments, and saints. The revival 
of ancient learning had revealed truth under new forms. 
The invention of printing had raised up a new order of 
scribes, expounders, readers, writers, clergy. Institutions 
which had guided the world for a thousand years, now de- 
cayed and out of joint, gave way at the moment when they 
were most needed. Was it possible that the Christian 
Church should meet these trials as it had met those w T hich 
had gone before ? It had lived through the fall of Jerusa- 
lem ; it had lived through the ten Persecutions ; it had lived 

b 4 



xl 



The Province of 



In trod. 



through its amalgamation with the Empire; it had lived 
through the invasion of the barbarians : but could it live 
through the struggles of internal dissolution ? could it live 
through the shipwreck of the whole outward fabric of its 
existence ? could the planks of the vessel, scattered on the 
face of the raging flood, be so put together again as to form 
any shelter from the storm, any home on the waters ? Did 
the history of the Church come to an end, as many thought 
it would, when its ancient organisation came to an end, in 
the great change of the Reformation ? 
Protes- We know that it still lived on. That it survived at all is 

an ism. ^ e hest proof which it has yet presented of its inherent 
vitality ; that it survived, in a purified form, is the best 
pledge of its future success. To Ancient Christianity, to 
Byzantine Christianity, to Roman Christianity, was now 
added the fourth and equally unmistakable form of Pro- 
testant Christianity : like the others, clothed in an outward 
shape of its own, and confining itself specially to distinct 
branches of the European family, yet also penetrating with 
its spirit institutions and nations outwardly most repugnant 
to it. Amidst many conflicts, therefore, Ecclesiastical History 
still continues in the general tracks that were opened for it 
in the sixteenth century. Whatever political troubles have 
agitated the world since that time, and whatever changes 
may be fermenting in the inner heart and mind of the 
Church, none have since altered its outward aspect and 
divisions. In one respect a wide difference exists between 
the history of Christendom as it was before, and as it has 
been since, the Reformation. Henceforward we cannot 
follow its course as a whole : each country must have its 
own ecclesiastical as well as its own civil history. Italy, 
Spain, Sweden, Holland, Geneva, Scotland, — the very 
names have each, in theological language, a peculiar pathos 
and significance imparted by the Reformation. In each that 
great event awakened a different note as it traversed their 



L Ecclesiastical History. xli 

several chords. Still there are three countries in which, 

beyond all others, the religious history of Europe has been 

specially carried on. 

It is in France that the fortunes of Christianity during TheFrench 

the last three centuries have been most visibly represented ^French 

in the brightest and in the darkest colours. The Gallican Revolu- 

. ... tlon - 

Church, in the seventeenth century the most brilliant in 

Europe, brilliant alike in its works of active mercy and 
in its almost Augustan age of great divines — Vincent of 
Paul, Bossuet, Fenelon, Pascal, — became in the eighteenth 
century the miserable parent, and then the victim, of the 
great convulsion which, whilst it shook the belief of the 
whole of Europe, in France for eleven years suppressed it 
altogether. The French Revolution must always be con- 
sidered as an epoch in the religious history of man. Not 
only was its hostility to the Christian faith the most direct 
that the world has seen since the days of Julian ; not only 
did it spring, in great measure, out of the corrupt state of 
the French clergy, the Church of Dubois and of Talley- 
rand ; but it possessed in itself that frightful energy which, 
as has been truly observed by its latest exponent l s can only 
be likened to the propagation of a new religion — the wild 
fanaticism, the proselytism, the self-devotion, the crimes, as 
though of a Western Mahometanism, — of what its own 
disciples have often called it, an imitation, a parody, a new, 
distorted edition of the Gospel. Not only is its history in- 
structive as a moral warning to all existing Churches, and 
as an interpreter of the great religious storms of former 
acres, but it changed the whole external constitution of the 
Church on the Continent generally; and, in the inward 
sifting and trial of the religious thoughts of men, its effects 
can still now be felt, even in countries the furthest re- 
moved from its immediate influence. 



1 Tocqueville : L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, c. iii. 



xlii 



The Province of 



Introd. 



The Germany, the seat of the original movement of the lie- 

Churdi 1 formation, has never lost the hold which it then first ac- 
quired on the reason and imagination of mankind. Its 
collective power as a Church has been too impalpable to 
attach itself to any definite course of outward events. But 
its individual divines have, more than any others, taken 
the place occupied by the schoolmen of the middle ages. 
No others, within the last hundred years, have exercised so 
powerful an influence over the rest of Europe, as the philoso- 
phical and critical theologians of the German universities. 
The Church And this leads us finally to the third great ecclesiastical 
Jand"^ system which stands alone and apart, yet with its own pe- 
culiar mission, in the general fortunes of the Western 
Church. At least for Englishmen, no Ecclesiastical History 
since the Reformation can be so instructive as that of our 
own Church of England. To see how, out of that wide 
shipwreck the fragments of our vessel were again pieced 
together ; how far it has realised the essential condition of 
the ark on the stormy waters ; how far it has contained with- 
in itself the necessary, though heterogeneous, elements of our 
national faith and character; how far it may still hope to 
do so ; what is its connection with the past, what its hold 
upon the future ; — this is the last and most important task 
of the English ecclesiastical historian. The peculiar con- 
stitution of our State has borne the brunt and survived the 
shock of the French Revolution: it is the- hope of the 
peculiar constitution of our Church that it should in like 
manner meet, overcome, and absorb the shock of the new 
thoughts and feelings to which, directly or indirectly, that 
last of European movements has given birth. 
Conclusion. I have been induced thus, at the outset, to dwell on this 
broad extent of prospect, first, because it is only by a just 
appreciation of the whole that any part can be properly 
understood ; and, secondly, because I wish to impress on my 
hearers the many points of contact which Ecclesiastical 
History presents to the various studies of this place. If at 



1. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xliii 



times it is impossible not to be oppressed with the load which 
has to be taken from the stores of the Pilgrim's Palace, it is 
a satisfaction to remember that there are many travellers 
passing along the same road who will, almost of necessity, 
lighten the burden and cheer the journey by their common 
interest in the treasures borne away. 

One such has been before me in this path, my lamented The late 
predecessor. Personally he was almost unknown to me. In ^us^y 01 
our mode of dealing with the subject before us we might 
have widely differed. But I cannot enter on this office 
without bearing my humble testimony to the conscientious 
industry with which, as I have heard from those who attended 
his Lectures, he guided them over the rugged way which he 
had chosen for them ; without expressing my grateful sense 
of the characteristic forethought and munificence with which 
he bequeathed to this Chair the valuable endowment of his 
library. Still more, I should be doing wrong both to him 
and to the University, were I not to dwell for a moment on 
what I have always understood was the chief ground of the 
respect which he commanded in this place. He was em- 
phatically a i( just man ; " he possessed in an eminent degree 
that rare gift of public integrity and fairness too rare in the 
world, too rare in the Church, too rare in Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, too rare even in great seats of learning, not to be noticed 
when it comes before us, especially when, as in the present 
case, it passes away with the marked approbation and regret 
of all who witnessed it. In times of much angry contro- 
versy, he never turned aside from his straightforward course 
to excite needless alarms. He never stooped 1 to win theo- 
logical favour by attacking unpopular names. He never 

1 As one instance, it may suffice to record the remarkable 
Ordination sermon on " The Atonement," preached by Professor 
Hussey in December, 1855, in which he defended the doc- 
trine of an eminent theologian, at that time the object of much 
vehement obloquy, and showed in guarded but decisive terms its 
substantial identity with that of the ancient Fathers. 



xliv 



The Province of 



Introd. 



allowed any religious sentiment or fancy to interfere with 
his manly and severe sense of truth and duty. He showed 
that it was possible to be impartial without weakness, and 
orthodox without bitterness. May the University long re- 
member that such was the character which she delighted to 
honour ! May his successors in this Chair be encouraged and 
enabled to act and to speak, in this most important respect, 
according to his example ! 



For the sake of convenience I subjoin the leading chronolo- 
gical divisions, which to some extent cross the historical and 
geographical divisions laid down in the foregoing Lecture. 

I. The rise of the Christian Church, a.d. 30—312. 

1. The Apostolic age. 30—70. 

2. The transition from the Apostolic age. 70 — 160. 

3. The age of Persecution. 160—312. 

II. The Church of the Empire. 

The Western Church. The Eastern Church. 

1. The beginning of the 1. The age of the Eastern 
Roman Church and of Councils. 312 — 781. 

Latin theology. 312 — 2. The rise of the Greek Em- 
476. pire and Church. 330 — 

1453. 

3. The rise of Mahometanism. 

622—732. 

4. The rise of the Russian 

Church. 988-— 1700. 

III. The Church of the Middle Ages. 476—1517. 

1. Conversion of the Barbarians. 450 — 800. 

2. The Papacy and the Crusades. 800—1300. 

3. The Western Councils and preludes of the Reformation. 

1300—1517. 

IV. The Churches of the Reformation. 1517—1789. 

1. The crisis of the Reformation. 1517 — 1550. 

2. The wars of the Reformation. 1550—1660. 

3. The rise of Latitudinarianism, of Methodism, of Galli- 

canism, and of German theology. 1660 — 1789. 

V. The French Revolution. 1789—1815. 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xlv 



II. 

THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOKY. 

It is sometimes said, that of all historical studies that of Dryness _ 

of Ecclesi- 

Ecclesiastical History is the most repulsive. We seem to astical His- 
be set down in the valley of the Prophet's vision, — strewn t01 ^' 
with bones, and behold they are ee very many," and es very 
dry ; " skeletons of creeds, of churches, of institutions ; 
trodden and traversed by the feet of travellers again and 
again ; the scapegoat of one age lying lifeless by the scape- 
goat of the next; craters of extinct volcanoes, which once 
filled the world with their noise, and are now dead and cold ; 
the salt shores of a barren sea, which throws up again dead 
and withered the branches which the river of life had cast 
into it full of beauty and verdure, — the very reverse of that 
green prospect which I set before you in my opening Lec- 
ture ; the more dreary, it may be said, from the wide extent 
into which it spreads. " How are we to give interest to 
" such a task ; how shall the healing streams penetrate into 
" those dead waters ; how shall those dry bones live ? " 

There may be many answers to this question, but I shall Remedy to 
content myself with the most obvious. Remember, that of j n a m s . 
all these things there is a history. These relics, these institu- J^g 1 ™^ 
tions, these characters (take them at their worst), had each Church, 
a part to play amongst mankind ; they were men of flesh 
and blood like ourselves, or they dwelt with men of flesh and 
blood like ourselves ; they were living human spirits, or 
they were the instruments of living human spirits ; however 
decayed, however antiquated they may be, yet in their very 
age they have an interest which no novelty can give. We 
cannot, it is true, enter on Ecclesiastical History, whether 
in its wider or its narrower sense, with the feeling of fresh 



xlvi 



The Study of 



Introd. 



enthusiasm which inspires the discoverers of unexplored 
regions, whether of science or history, ec the first who ever 
" burst into the silent sea," or secluded ruins, which no eye 
of man has seen before. But we can enter upon it with the 
yet deeper delight which fills our minds, as we feel rising be- 
neath our feet. the ground of the Seven Hills; or as we 
gaze, knowing that hundreds of thousands have gazed before 
us, on the everlasting outline of the Pyramids. So view 
the history of the Church, even in its most lifeless and 
withered forms ; so view it as part of a whole, as once having 
lived, as living still in ourselves, as destined to live on in 
future generations ; so prophesy over its dry bones as they 
lie scattered and disjointed over the surface of the world, — 
and we shall soon hear (S a noise and a shaking," and Cf the 
" bones will come together," each to each, and " the breath 
" will come into them, and they will live, and stand up upon 
" their feet, an exceeding great army." 
I. History Let me point out how this remedy is involved in the very 
trinesT" nature of the case. Take, for example, the history of doc- 
trines and opinions. Many ecclesiastical histories contain 
little else; half of theology is taken up in stating them. 
How immensely do they gain in liveliness, in power, in the 
capacity of being understood and appreciated, if we view 
them through the medium of the lives, characters, and cir- 
cumstances of those who received and taught them ! Trace 
the actual course of any opinion or dogma ; see the influences 
by which it was coloured ; compare the relative importance 
attached to it at one period and another ; ask how far the 
words in which it has been expressed convey the same or a 
different meaning to us or to our fathers ; discover, if pos- 
sible, its fountain-head in the time, the country, or the 
person in which it first originated. Look at Augustinianism 
as it arose in the mind of Augustine ; at Lutheranism as it 
was conceived by Luther; at Wesleyanism as it was set 
forth by Wesley. It will cease to be a phantom, it will 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. xlvii 



speak to us as a man : if it is an enemy, we shall slay it more 
easily ; if a friend, we shall embrace it more warmly. 

Still more is this the case with the kindred subject of n. History 
Confessions and Articles of Faith. If we regard them merely an<?Arti! 
in their cut and dried results, they may indeed serve many cles - 
useful ends ; they supply stakes to make hedges against 
intruders, planks to cross our enemy's trenches, faggots to 
burn heretics. But go to the soil from which they sprang. 
Watch them in their wild, native, luxuriant growth. Ob- 
serve the moss which has grown over their stems, the bough 
rent away there and grafted in here, the branches inex- 
tricably intertwined with adjacent thickets. So regarded, 
they will not be less, but more, of a shelter ; we shall not 
value them the less for understanding them better. Figure 
to yourselves, as you read any creeds or confessions, the lips 
by which they were first uttered, the hands by which they 
were first written. Hear the Apostles' Creed, as it summed 
up in its few simple sentences the belief of the Roman 
martyrs. Watch the Nicene Bishops meeting each other, 
and their opponents, and the Emperor Constantine, for the 
first time, on the shores of the Bithynian lake. Listen to the 
triumphs of Clovis and Recared over the Arians of France 
and Spain, the rising storms between East and West, and 
you will more clearly catch the true meaning of their echo 
in the old Latin hymn, Quicunquevult, then first welcomed 
into the worship of Western Europe. Read the Articles of the 
English Church in their successive mutilations, excrescences, 
variations. Go to that most precious of collegiate libraries 
in the sister University, where the venerable autograph 
which contains them may still be seen : look at the signatures 
of those whose names are affixed : conceive the persons 
whom those names represent: imagine them, as any one 
who has ever taken part in any council, or commission, or 
committee, or conclave of any kind whatever, can and must 
imagine them ; one sacrificing, another insisting on, a fa- 



xlviii 



The Study of 



In trod. 



vourite expression ; a new turn given to one sentence, a 
charitable colour thrown over another ; the edge of a sharp 
exclusion blunted by one party, the sting of a bitter sarcasm 
drawn by another. Start from this view, as certain as it 
can be made by the facts of human nature and by the facts 
of history, both universal and particular. Regard confessions 
of faith in this their only true historical light, and in that 
light many a new glimpse will be obtained of their practical 
justice and moderation ; many a harsh expression will be 
explained, many a superfluous scruple of honest minds will 
vanish away, many a foolish controversy will be extin- 
guished for ever. 

III. His- But the proper material for Ecclesiastical History is, after 
eventifand no * institutions or opinions, but events and persons, 
persons. Leviticus and the Proverbs have their own special value, 
but they are not reckoned amongst the et historical books " 
of the Jewish Church. Bingham's learned work, however 
useful as an auxiliary, contains "the antiquities," not the 
history, of the Christian Church. It is on its special 
incidents and characters that the vitality of any history de- 
pends. How can we best make ourselves acquainted with 
these ? 

General In this, as in so many other branches of knowledge, the 
question can only be fully answered in each particular case. 
Whatever way will best enable each man, in his own pe- 
culiar situation, character, and opportunities, to remember, 
and understand, and profit, that is to him the best, and can 
be taught only by consulting his own experience. 

For general readers, the best general counsel which can 
be given is that which I have already indicated. Study the 
history of the Church in connection with the collateral sub- 
jects with which it is bound up; let us keep our eyes and 
ears open to the religious aspects of history, and they will 
break in upon us, we know not whence, or how. 

Let us read also, whatever we do read, as elsewhere, so 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



xlix 



here, in the works of eminent historians rather than in those 
of writers without a name and without a character ; and yet 
more, read, if possible, works which describe what they 
describe at length and in detail, and which therefore leave a 
lasting impression on the memory and imagination, rather 
than in the crowded pages of meagre abstracts, which are 
forgotten as soon as read. Great works and full works, not 
small works and short works, are in the end the best economy 
of time as well as of everything else. 

But this leads me to what is, on the whole, the most Detailed 
instructive, though (it may be) not the only practicable, g V eat ° f 
course to be followed by those who wish, in the true sense of eveuts - 
the word, to be (i students " of Ecclesiastical History. We 
cannot attempt to describe or to study every event in detail, 
for time and labour would fail ; we need not do it com- 
pendiously, for this has been done to our hands again and 
again, and of late years with such candour and research as 
to render any further work of the kind superfluous. One 
method remains to us, at once the most obvious and the 
most interesting. Lay aside the lesser events, or read them 
only so far as to preserve a continuous knowledge of the 
general thread of the history : it is for this purpose that the 
briefer narratives, when clearly and ably written, are of 
substantial use. But study the greater events, scenes, places, 
and revolutions, in all the detail in which they can be repre- 
sented to us. 

Take, for example, the General Councils of the Church. The 
They are the pitched battles of Ecclesiastical History. Ask Counclls - 
yourselves the same questions as you would about the battles 
of military history. Ask when, and where, and why they 
were fought. Put before your minds all the influences of 
the age which there were confronted and concentrated from 
different quarters as in one common focus. See why they 
were summoned to Nicrea, to Constance, to Trent: the 
locality often contains here, as in actual battles, the key of 

c 



The Study of 



Introd. 



Detailed 
study of 
great men. 



Neander 
and his 
History 
of the 
Church. 



tlieir position, and easily connects the Ecclesiastical History 
of the age with its general history and geography. Look at 
the long procession as it enters the scene of assembly ; see 
who was present and who was absent. 1 Let us make our- 
selves acquainted with the several characters there brought 
together, so that we may recognise them as old friends if we 
meet them again elsewhere. Study their decrees 2 , as ex- 
positions of the prevailing sentiments of the time; study 
them, as Mr. Froude has advised us to study the statutes 
of our own ancient Parliaments ; see what evils are most 
condemned, and what evils are left uncondemned ; observe 
how far their injunctions are still obeyed, or how far set at 
nought, and ask in each case the reason why. Read them, 
as I have just now noticed, with the knowledge given to us 
by our own experience of all synods of all kinds ; read them 
with the knowledge which each gives of every other. Do 
this for any one Council, and you will have made a deep hole 
into Ecclesiastical History. 

And still more let this same rule be followed with regard 
to persons. Take any one character. It may be we shall 
be attracted towards him by some accidental connexion ; it 
may, and should rather, be on account of his preeminent 
greatness. Do not let him leave you till you have, at any 
rate, retained some one distinctive feature by which you 
will know him again in the multitudes amongst which he 
will else be lost ; some feature of mind or person which he 
has, and which others have not. 3 

Many of us must have read, in part at least, Neander's 
" History of the Christian Church," and will have admired, 
as every one must admire, the depth, the tenderness, the 
delicacy of Christian sentiment which pervades the whole of 
his vast work-, and fulfils his own beautiful motto, " It is the 
"heart which makes the theologian," — Pectus theologum facit. 



1 See Lecture III. 2 See Lecture V. 

3 See Lectures VI. VII. XI. XII. 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. % u 



Yet, without disparaging the value of such a mirror of 
Christian history in such a character, we cannot help feeling 
that it is often rather the theologian than the historian whose 
words we read ; that it is often rather the thoughts, than the 
actual persons and deeds, of men, that he is describing to us. 
They are the ghosts of Ossian, rather than the heroes of 
Homer; they are refined, they are spiritualised, to that degree, 
that their personality almost vanishes ; the stars of heaven 
shine through them : but we have no hold on their earthly 
frames ; we can trace no human lineaments in their features, 
as they pass before us. Let us endeavour to fill up this outline; 
however much of deeper interest it may have for the more 
philosophical mind, it will hardly lay hold on the memory or 
the affections of the more ordinary student, unless it is 
brought closer to our grasp. How differently we learn to 
estimate even Neander himself, according as we merely 
regard him as a thinker of holy thoughts, the writer of a 
good book, or as we see the venerable historian in his own 
proper person, — his black, shaggy, overhanging eyebrows 
and his strong J ewish physiognomy revealing the nation and 
religion to which he first belonged, — working at his history 
night and day with insatiable ardour, to show to his uncon- 
verted countrymen what Christianity really was ; abstracted 
from all thought of worldly cares, of food, and dress, and 
money, and time ; living, dying, buried in the affections, in 
the arms, of his devoted pupils ! What by proximity of time 
we are enabled to do for the historian, true research usually 
enables us to do for those whom he describes. Watch their 
first appearance, their education, their conflicts, their death- 
beds. Observe their relative position to each other; see 
what one did which another would not have done, what one 
thought or said which to another would have been heretical 
or superstitious ; or, lastly, what all did, and said, and thought 
in common. 

If I were to name one especial excellence amongst the Represen- 

c 2 



lii 



The Study of 



Introd 



tation of many which render Mr. Grote's great achievement so im- 

the distinc- it. ■% r> • i • 

tion of cha- portant an addition, not merely to Grecian history, but to 
all historical study, of whatever kind, it would be the keen 
discrimination with which he presents, not merely distinct 
characters, but distinct types of character in the lineage of 
the Grecian mind, whom before we had been accustomed to 
regard much as we usually regard the fixed stars — their 
distance from each other being lost in comparison with the 
distance from ourselves. In these contrasts and combinations 
of character we find exactly what is most needed in the 
history of the Church. Here, even more than in common 
history, we are apt to blend together the different persons of 
the story under one common class. Yet here, even more 
than in common history, we ought to keep each separate 
from each, if we would learn the lessons they have to teach 
to the world. Of ordinary readers, how few there are to 
whom the Fathers, the Schoolmen, nay, even the Reformers, 
although divided as classes, are not confounded as individuals ! 
How few there are who can trace the descent, step by step, 
as the genealogy (so to speak) of the Church is unrolled 
before us ! From Ignatius to Cyprian, from Origen to 
Athanasius, from Athanasius to Augustine, from Augustine 
to Bernard, from Bernard to Aquinas, to Tauler, to Luther, 
how wide are the gaps, how necessary the connection, how 
startling the difference ! Or, again, in the more outward 
history, how various are the trains of association awakened 
by the successive representatives of the Empire and of the 
Papacy, in Constantine, in Clovis, in Charlemagne, in Bar- 
barossa, in Charles Y. ; or, on the other hand, in Gregory I., 
in Gregory YIL, in Innocent III., in Leo X., in Sixtus Y. ! 
Each has his own message to deliver; each has his own work to 
perform ; each is a link in that manifold chain which conveys 
the electric spark from the first to the nineteenth century. 
It was a happy thought of Eusebius, that he would trace 
the history of the various ancient churches through the sue- 



II. Ecclesiastical History. liii 

cession of Bishops, who in those early times were literally 
the personifications of their flocks. It is a yet happier 
arrangement, whenever the interest of the history of the 
whole Church can be concentrated in the still Grander sue- 

o 

cession of those who have stood forth as the overseers and 
guides of Christendom, whether by good or bad eminence^ — 
not only from generation to generation, but from century to 
century, and from age to age. 

It is not without reason that I have thus recommended Uses of 
for your study the selection of the detailed representation of method 
some one event, person, or institution of commanding in- 
terest. Not only will it furnish us with the best mode of 
giving life to what is often a barren labour, but it will 
also be the best safeguard against many of the evils with 
which the student of Ecclesiastical History is beset. 

First, it is always useful to be reminded of the various I. Grada- 
degrees of importance in the different events and insti- portanee" 

tutions of the Church. There is no more common error of in ecclesi- 
astical 

theological students than to regard everything connected subjects, 
with religion as of equal significance. They will allow of 
no light or shade, no difference between things essential and 
things unessential, no proportion between means and ends, 
between tilings moral and things ceremonial, between things 
doubtful and things certain. Against this levelling tendency 
of ecclesiastical study, History lifts up a warning which may 
be heeded when all else fails. Believe that Athanasius and 
Augustine are worthier objects of interest than Flavian or 
Optatus, and you will have made one step towards believing 
that there is a gradation of importance in the several con- 
troversies in which the Church has been engaged. Believe 
that the invasion and conversion of the barbarians was the 
great crisis and work of mediaeval religion, and you will 
have made a step towards believing that the Church of 
Christ has higher aims than the disputes respecting the 
observance of Easter, or the shape of the clerical tonsure. 

c 3 



liv 



The Study of 



Introd. 



II. Com- 
bination of 
Civil and 
Ecclesi- 
astical 
History. 



III. Cau- 
tion against 
partiality. 



Secondly , this combination of study round one main object 
solves, in part, the difficulty which I noticed in my first 
Lecture, respecting the relations of Civil and Ecclesiastical 
History. The subordinate persons and events of each may 
be easily divided from one another. But the greater cha- 
racters of necessity combine both elements ; they are the 
meeting-points of the two spheres of human life ; they rise 
above the point of divergence ; they show that in the most 
important moments of social and individual action all the 
influences of life, physical, intellectual, political, moral, come 
together : in these cases, whatever we may do elsewhere, we 
cannot disentangle the web without breaking it. Those di- 
visions of history which we sometimes see under the heads 
of " civil and military," " political " and " religious," though 
convenient for common wars or common controversies^ yet 
utterly fail when they touch an age like the Reformation, 
though possible in the cases of Melanchthon or Jeremy Taylor, 
break down entirely when applied to Luther or Oliver 
Cromwell. The unity of purpose which is the main cha- 
racteristic of any great mind, the close connection of lead- 
ing ideas which is the main interest of any great age, is 
grievously marred when we have to seek the disjointed frag- 
ments from different quarters, and take up over and over 
again the thread of the same interrupted story. 

Thirdly, this same method will be a protection against the 
prevailing sin of ecclesiastical historians — exclusiveness and 
partiality. 

It is well known that Eusebius openly avows his intention 
of relating only those incidents in the lives of the martyrs of 
Palestine which would reflect credit on the Church, and 
that Milner constructs his whole history on the principle 
that he will omit all mention of ecclesiastical wickedness, 
and record only the specimens of ecclesiastical virtue. Such 
a process, however'edifying and useful for certain purposes, 
yet is never wholly safe, and happily is rendered almost im- 



II. Ecclesiastical History. lv 

possible as soon as we wish to consider the full character and 
bearings of any person or institution on which we are en- 
gaged. If once we are inspired with a genuine desire of 
seeing the man as he really was, if he was worth being seen 
at all, we shall not be satisfied unless we see him altogether. 
Here, as in so many other respects, the sacred history of the 
J ewish Church is our best example. We there see, not the 
half, but the whole of David. We are told not only of his 
goodness, but of his sins; and we can there judge how 
wonderfully the history of the Church has gained by such a 
frank disclosure : how thin, how pale in comparison, would 
that biography have been, had the darker side been sup- 
pressed and the bright side only exhibited. Such a com- 
pleteness of view we are almost driven to take, when we 
explore, not one, but all the sources whence our knowledge 
can be drawn. 1 We may still lament that the story of the lion 
is so often told only by the man, that the lives and opinions 
of heretics can be traced only in the writings of the ortho- 
dox, that the clergy have been so often the sole historians of 
the crimes of the laity. But we shall have learned at least 
to know that there is another side, even when that side has 
been torn away or lost. We shall often find some ancient 
fragment or forgotten parchment, like that which vindicates 
Edwy and Elgiva from the almost unanimous calumny of 
their monastic enemies. We shall see that in the original 
biographies of Becket, partial though they be, enough 
escapes to reveal that he is not the faultless hero represented 
to us in modern martyrology. 

The mere perusal of the indiscriminate praise and abuse 
lavished on the same person by two opposite historians is in- 
structive, even for our guidance in the present. The mere 
collection of the cross-fire of vituperation from modern par- 
tisans is useful as teaching us distrust in any one-sided view 
of the past. Selden, who knew well the danger and false- 



1 See Lecture II. 

c 4 



The Study of 



Introd. 



hood of extremes, confines his advice on te ecclesiastical 
story " to this single point — to study the exaggerated 
statements of Baronius on the one side, and of the Magde- 
burg Centuriators on the other, " and be our own judges." 
Nor let any one suppose that this conflict of evidence renders 
the attainment of certainty impossible. Doubtless there are 
many points both in sacred and in common history, both in 
civil and ecclesiastical records, where we must be content to 
remain in suspense. History will have left half its work 
undone, if it does not teach us humility and caution. But 
essential truth can almost always be found, truth of all kinds 
can with due research be usually found : she lies, no doubt, in 
a well ; but we may be sure that she is there if we dig deep 
enough. In this labour teachers and students must all work 
together. What one cannot discover, many at work on the 
same point can often prove beyond doubt. Like Napoleon 
and his comrades, when lost in the quicksands of the Red 
Sea, let each ride out a different way, and the first that 
comes to firm ground bid the others halt and follow him. 
IV. Kefer- Fourthly, this method of study will enable us all from 
orginal time to time to set our foot on that firmest of all ground, 
authorities, which every student of history ought to touch once in his 
life, original authorities. We cannot do it always, but by 
the mere necessity of exploring any one subject to the 
bottom we must do it at times. It will be a constant charm 
of the history of the Chosen People that there we shall 
rarely be absent from, at any rate, the nearest approaches 
which can now be made to the events described. But it 
will be a charm also in the minute investigation of any 
point in the later history, that, however well told by 
modern compilers, there is almost sure to be something in 
the original records which we should else have overlooked. 
How inestimable are the fragments of Hegesippus and the 
Epistle of the Church of Lyons embedded in the rhe- 
toric of Eusebius ! How lifelike, in the dead partisanship of 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



Ivii 



Strype, are the letters, injunctions, and narratives of the 
actors whose words and deeds he so feebly undertakes to 
represent ! 

And original records are not confined merely to contem- 
poraneous histories, nor even to contemporaneous literature, 
sermons, poems, laws, decrees. Study the actual statues 
and portraits of the men, the sculptures and pictures of the 
events : if they do not give us the precise image of the 
persons and things themselves, they give us at least the 
image left on those who came nearest to them. Study their 
monuments, their gravestones, their epitaphs, on the spots 
where they lie. Study, if possible, the scenes of the events, 
their aspect, their architecture, their geography; the tradition 
which has survived the history, the legend which has survived 
the tradition ; the mountain, the stream, the shapeless stone, 
which has survived even history, and tradition, and legend. 

Take two examples instead of a hundred. There are few Graves of 
more interesting episodes in modern Ecclesiastical History n^nters?*" 
than that of the Scottish Covenanters. But the school in 
which that episode must be studied is Scotland itself. The 
caves, and moors, and moss-hags of the Western Lowlands ; 
the tales, which linger still, of the black charger of Claver- 
house, of the strange encounters with the Evil one, of the 
cry of the plover and peewit round the encampments on the 
hill-side, are more instructive than many books. The rude 
gravestones which mark the spots where those were laid who 
bore testimony to i( the covenanted work of reformation, and 
" Christ's kingly government of His house," bring before us 
in the most lively, because in the most condensed, authentic, 
original form, the excited feeling of the time, and the most 
peculiar traits of the religion of the Scottish people. Their 
independence, their fervour, their fierceness, may have be- 
longed to the age. But hardly out of Scotland could be 
found their stubborn endurance, their thirst for vengeance, 
their investment of the narrowest questions of discipline and 



Iviii 



The Study of 



Introd. 



ceremony with the sacredness of universal principles. We 
almost fancy that we see the survivors of the dead spelling 
and scooping out their savage rhymes on the simple monu- 
ments, each catching from each the epithets, the texts, the 
names, almost Homeric in the simplicity and the sameness 
with which they are repeated on those lonely tombstones 
from shore to shore of the Scottish kingdom. 
The Cata- Or turn to a similar instance of kindred but wider interest. 

What insight into the familiar feelings and thoughts of the 
primitive ages of the Church can be compared to that afforded 
by the Roman catacombs ! Hardly noticed by Gibbon or 
Mosheim, they yet give us a likeness of the life of those 
early times beyond that derived from any of the written 
authorities on which Gibbon and Mosheim repose. Their 
very structure is significant ; their vast extent, their labyrin- 
thine darkness, their stifling atmosphere, are a standing 
proof both of the rapid spread of the Christian conversions, 
and of the active fury of the heathen persecutions. The 
subjects of the sculptures and paintings place before us the 
exact ideas with which the first Christians were familiar; 
they remind us, by what they do not contain, of the ideas 
with which the first Christians were not familiar. We see 
with our own eyes the very stories from the Old and the 
New Testament which sustained the courage of the early 
martyrs, and the innocent festivities of the early feasts of 
Christian love. The barbarous style of the sculptures, the 
bad spelling, the coarse engraving of the epitaphs, impresses 
upon us more clearly than any sermon the truth that God 
chose the weak, and base, and despised things of the world 
to bring to nought the things which are mighty. He who is 
thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catacombs will be 
nearer to the thoughts of the early Church than he who has 
learned by heart the most elaborate treatise even of Tertul- 
lian or of Origen. 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



lix 



And now, having set before you the method of the study Opportuni- 
which, for all who enter upon it seriously, and in its general g l t ^ d y r thlS 
features even for all who enter upon it superficially, is the 
most desirable, let me briefly notice some of the special 
opportunities which we ourselves possess for following up 
the study at all. 

First, if there ever was a Church in which Ecclesiastical L In the 
History might be expected to flourish, it is the English. England. 
Unlike almost all the other Churches of Europe, alone in 
its constitution, in its origin, in its formularies, it touches 
all the religious elements which have divided Christendom. 
He may be a true son of the Church of England who is 
able to throw himself into the study of the first Four 
Councils to which the statutes of our constitution refer, or 
of the mediaeval times in which our cathedrals and parishes 
were born and nurtured. He also may be a true son of the 
same who is able to hail as fellow-workers the great Re- 
formers of Wittenberg, of Geneva, and of Zurich, whence 
flowed so strong an influence over at least half of our 
present formularies. But he is the truest son of all who, in 
the spirit of this union, feels himself free to sympathise with 
the several elements and principles of good which the 
Church of England has thus combined, who knows that the 
strength of a national Church, especially of the Church of 
a nation like ours, lies in the fact that it has never been sur- 
rendered exclusively to any one theological influence, and 
that the Christian faith which it has inherited from all is 
greater than the differences which it has inherited from 
each. 

The Prayer-book as it stands is a long gallery of Ec- 
clesiastical History, which, to be understood and enjoyed 
thoroughly, absolutely compels a knowledge of the greatest 
events and names of all periods of the Christian Church. 
To Ambrose we owe our Te Deum ; Charlemagne breaks 



Ix 



The Study of 



Introd. 



the silence of our ordination prayers by the Veni Creator 
Spiritus. The Persecutions have given us one creed, and the 
Empire another. The name of the first great Patriarch of 
the Byzantine Church closes our daily service ; the Litany 
is the bequest of the first great Patriarch of the Latin 
Church, amidst the terrors of the Roman pestilence. Our 
collects are the joint productions of the Fathers, the Popes, 
and the Reformers. Our communion service bears the 
traces of every fluctuation of the Reformation, through the 
two extremes of the reign of Edward to the conciliating 
policy of Elizabeth, and the reactionary zeal of the Resto- 
ration. The more comprehensive, the more free, the more 
impartial is our study of any or every branch of Ecclesias- 
tical History, the more will it be in accordance with the 
spirit and with the letter of the Church of England. 
II. In the Secondly, I cannot forbear to notice the special advantages 
^"oxforcf vouchsafed to all of us in this place, as members of this great 
University. Its libraries enable us to pursue our cross- 
examination of ancient witnesses, our reproduction of ancient 
scenes and events through all the appliances of antiquarian 
and artistic knowledge. Its peculiar mixture of various 
characters and callings, students and studies, invites us to 
that fusion of lay and clerical, of modern and ancient, of 
common and sacred, which is so vital to a full understanding 
of our subject, yet which would be so easily lost in institu- 
tions more purely theological, more strictly professional. 
But, besides all this, the very place itself is teeming with 
history, if not of the more universal Church, yet of the 
Church of our own country, to which, sooner or later, our 
studies must be turned. 

In those studies I trust that we shall find that " Alfred 
" the Great, our first Founder," did well to plant his seat of 
learning beside the venerable shrine of St. Frideswide. We 
shall be the better able to comprehend Duns Scotus and the 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



Ixi 



schoolmen as we stand in the ancient quadrangle of Merton, 
or listen to the dim traditions of Brasenose. Mediaeval 
theology and practice will stand out clearly in the quaint 
customs of Queen's, and the romantic origin of All Souls. 
The founders of Exeter and of New College will give us a 
true likeness of mediaeval prelates, — architects, warriors, 
statesman, and bishops, all in one. WyclhTe will assume a 
more distinct shape and form to those who trace his local 
habitation as Master of Balliol. Erasmus will not soon die 
out of our recollection when we remember the little college 
of Corpus, which he hoped would be to Great Britain what 
the Mausoleum was to Caria, and what the Pyramids were 
to Egypt. The unfinished splendour of Christ Church is 
the enduring monument of the magnificence and of the 
fall of Wolsey. The Reformation will not be unaptly re- 
presented to us in the day when the quadrangles were knee- 
deep in the torn leaves of the scholastic divines, or when 
Ridley and Latimer suffered for their faith beside the gate- 
way of Bocarclo. Its successive retirements and advances 
have left their traces in the foundation of Wadham, Trinity, 
and Jesus. From St. John's began the counter reformation 
of Laud. Magdalen and University are the two memorials 
of resistance and subservience to James II. From Lincoln 
and Pembroke sprang the great religious movement of 
Wesley and Whitfield, and Oriel will not allow us to forget 
that we too have witnessed a like movement in our own day, 
of various forms and various results, already become histo- 
rical, which will at least help us to appreciate such events in 
former times, and to remember that we too are parts of the 
Ecclesiastical History of our country. 

Finally, this leads us to the reflection that there will be m j n 
probably many amongst my hearers who are looking forward J|J e e clei 
to an active life in the various ministrations, near and distant, 
of the English Church. They too will have in their different 



Ixii 



The Study of 



In trod. 



localities, in those from which they came hither, in those to 
which they will go hence, the same atmosphere of ancient 
times surrounding them, wherever their lot be cast. Our 1 
Ecclesiastical History is not confined to Oxford or to any one 
sacred city. Everywhere we shall find something to keep 
alive in our recollections the growth and spread of the 
Christianity of this great country. Almost every c^hurch 
and churchyard has its own antiquities. Almost every parish 
and every sect has its own strange spiritual experiences, past 
or present. In almost every county and province we may 
study those august trophies of Ecclesiastical History, in- 
structive beyond those of almost any ' other country, our 
cathedrals. I need name but one, the most striking and the 
most obvious instance, the cradle of English Christianity, the 
seat of the English Primacy, my own proud cathedral, the 
Metropolitical Church of Canterbury. 

But, beyond any mere antiquarian interest, there must also 
be many occasions, in the work of every English clergyman, 
when the history of the Church may yield lessons of a prac- 
tical and substantial value in his manifold duties and labours. 
What those lessons are I shall trust, in some measure to re- 
present in my next Lecture. Meanwhile, let me express the 
hope and the stimulus which ought to be given by the thought 
that I shall be addressing myself, not merely to students, but 
to those who will have to turn their study into practice ; not 
merely to the confined atmosphere of a lecture-room, but to a 
spirit blowing out from us and in upon us, to and from the 
four winds of heaven. There has been doubtless a tendency 
in past times (perhaps there will be in all times) which 
recent measures have wisely endeavoured to counteract, a 
tendency to absorb the general functions of the University 
into the special departments of ecclesiastical thought and 
education. But we must not forget that there is also an 
academical narrowness, and dryness, and stiffness ; and that 



II. 



Ecclesiastical History 



Ixiii 



there is, on the other hand, an ecclesiastical breadth, and 
freedom, and warmth, which is for that evil, if not the 
highest, at least to many of us the nearest, remedy. To 
think that any words here spoken, any books here studied, 
may enliven discourses and ministrations far away in the 
dark corners of London alleys, in the free air of heaths and 
downs in north or south, on western mountains or in eastern 
fens ; that records of noble deeds achieved, and of wise say- 
ings uttered, long ago, may lend a point to practical precepts, 
or soften needless differences, or raise dull souls heavenward, 
or give a firmer grasp on truth ; — this will of itself cheer 
many an hour of labour here. In that labour and with that 
hope it is for all of us to join. By constant communication 
of mutual knowledge, by contribution of the results of the 
several researches and gifts of all, students and learners will 
really be to their Professor not only (according to the well- 
known and now almost worn-out saying of JSTiebuhr) his 
wings, but also his feet, and his hands, and his eyes. By 
bearing in mind the large practical field in which our work 
may be afterwards used, we shall all bring to the very driest 
bones of our study sinews, and flesh, and blood, and breath, 
and spirit, and life. 



Ixiv 



The Advantages of Introd. 



III. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

In my first Lecture, when defining the province of Eccle- 
siastical History, I was led to describe it in its widest extent ; 
in my second, when stating the method by which life could 
be given to the study, I was led to dwell upon its narrower 
limits. And we must endeavour, in our future course, 
never, whilst studying the parts, to forget the whole ; nor 
ever so to lose ourselves in the whole, as to neglect the study 
of one or more of the parts. Breadth without accuracy, 
accuracy without breadth, are almost equal evils. 

In the present Lecture I propose to consider some of the 
chief practical advantages of the study. 
I. Import- Whatever may be the uncertainties of History, whatever its 
facts in antiquarian prejudices, whatever its imaginative temptations, 

theological there is at least one sobering and enlarging effect always to be 
study. . f 00 J 

expected from it — that it brings us down from speculations and 

fancies to what at least profess to be facts, and that those facts 
transport us some little distance from the interests and the 
illusions of the present. This is especially true of History 
in connection with Theology. As it is one of the main cha- 
racteristics of Christianity itself, that alone of all religions 
it claims to be founded on historical fact ; that its doctrines 
and precepts, in great measure, have been conveyed to us 
in the form of history ; and that this form has given them a 
substance, a vitality, a variety, which could, humanly speak- 
ing, have been attained in no other way ; so we need not 
fear to confess that the same connection has existed through 
all the subsequent stages of the propagation of the religion. 



III. Ecclesiastical History. Ixv 

" The disciple is not above his Master : " Theology is not 
above Christianity : the Christian Church is in many re- 
spects the best practical exposition of the Christian Religion. 
Facts are still the most powerful, the most solid, the most 
stubborn guides in the mazes of speculation and casuistry ; 
they cut through difficulties which arguments cannot over- 
turn ; they overturn theories which will surrender to nothing 
else. Ecclesiastical History is thus, as it were, the backbone 
of Theology. It keeps the mind of the theological student 
in an upright state. Often as facts are perverted, and 
twisted, and bent to meet a purpose, yet they offer a sterner 
resistance than anything else short of the primary instincts 
of humanity. 

They offer, too, not only the most convincing, but the* 
least irritating modes of persuasion, an advantage in theo- 
logical matters of no mean importance. The wrath which 
is kindled by an anathema, by an opinion, by an argument, 
is often turned away by a homely fact. It is like suddenly 
meeting an enemy face to face, of whom we have known 
only by report : he is different from what we expected ; we 
cannot resist the pressure of his hand and the glance of his 
eye ; he has ceased to be an abstraction, he has become a 
person. How many elaborate arguments respecting terms 
of salvation and terms of communion are shivered to pieces, 
yet without offence, almost without resistance, as they are 
" walked through " (if I may use the expression) by such 
heathens as Socrates, such Nonconformists as Howard, such 
Quakers as Elizabeth Fry. 

This applies more and more strongly as our range of facts 
is enlarged. The more numerous and the more varied are 
the objects which we embrace within our range of vision, 
the less likely are we to place our trust in what Bacon well 
calls tc the idols of the cave," in which our own individual 
lot is cast. 

It will be vain to argue, on abstract grounds, for the 

d 



Ixvi 



The Advantages of Introd 



II. Import- 
ance of a 
general 
view of 
Ecclesi- 
astical 
History. 



absolute and indefeasible necessity of some practice or cere- 
mony, of which we have learned from history that there is 
no instance for one, two, three, or four hundred years, in 
the most honoured ages of the Church. It will be vain to 
denounce as subversive of Christianity, doctrines which we 
have known from biography to have been held by the very 
saints, martyrs, and reformers whom else we are constantly 
applauding. Opinions and views which, in a familiar and 
modified form, waken in us no shock of surprise, or even 
command our warm admiration, will often for the first time 
be truly apprehended when we see them in the ritual or the 
creed of some rival, or remote, or ua rbarous Church, which 
is but the caricature and exaggeration of that which we our- 
selves hold. Practices which we insist on retaining or re- 
pudiating, as if they involved the very essence of the Catholic 
faith or of the Reformation, will appear less precious or less 
dangerous, as the case may be, in the eyes of the respective 
disputants, if history shows us clearly that we thereby make 
ourselves, on the one hand, more papal than the Pope, more 
Roman than Rome ; on the other hand, more Lutheran 
than Luther, more Genevan than Calvin. 

If this be the effect of the study of even isolated facts of 
Christian history, much more will it result from the study of 
the general phenomena which mark its course. There may 
be a tendency in special subjects of ecclesiastical study to 
cramp and narrow the mind, but there is none such in the 
more general view, which embraces its relations to the world 
at large, and which compels us to view the lay as well as the 
clerical element of the Church, the broad secular framework 
in which the whole Church itself is set. 

It is always useful to see, as must be seen in any exten- 
sive survey, how large a portion of our ecclesiastical di- 
versities is to be traced, not to religious causes, but to the 
more innocent, and in one sense irresistible, influences of 
nation, of climate, of race, of the general course of human 



in. Ecclesiastical History. lxvii 



affairs. The bitterness of English partisanship will be 
greatly diminished in proportion as we recognise the fact, 
that the divergence between the Church of England and 
Nonconformists springs from differences not so much of 
theological principle or opinion, as of social and hereditary 
position. The greater divisions of Christendom can be 
regarded "calmly and kindly/' in proportion as we are able 
to take in, as from a summit, the whole view of which they 
form the intersecting lines. What seemed, near at hand, to 
be mere deformities, from a more distant point are lost in 
the sense of the vast prospect to which each feature con- 
tributes its peculiar part. The most cursory view of the 
various sects and Churches of the world will make us suspect 
that we are not all truth and goodness, nor they all error 
and vice. The very names of the chiefest among them, 
Greek and Latin, Gallican, Anglican, German, will show us 
how much of the distinction between them must be traced 
simply to national and geographical influences. 

Nor let it be supposed that a philosophical or a general 
view of Ecclesiastical History is of necessity a cold or con- 
temptuous view. There is, it is true, a melancholy feeling 
suggested by any wide contemplation of Christendom. We 
think of the contrast between the story as it might have 
been and the story as it is. We ask what ought to have 
been " more noble or more beautiful than the gradual pro- 
" gress of the Spirit of light and love, dispelling the darkness 
" of folly, and subduing into one divine harmony all the 
"jarring elements of evil ; " and we have in its place (if I 
may use words the more touching from the keenness of 
regret with which they were uttered), " no steady, un- 
" wavering advance of heavenly spirits, but one continually 
" interrupted, checked, diverted from its course, driven back- 
"ward; as of men possessed by some bewildering spell, 
" wasting their strength upon imaginary obstacles, hindering 
" each other's progress and their own, by stopping to ana- 

d2 



lxviii 



The Advantages of 



Introd. 



" lyze and dispute about the nature of the sun's light till all 
" were blinded by it, instead of thankfully using its aid to 
" show them the right path onward." 1 

Most true, — yet even in its very sadness containing 
grounds of hope and consolation. 

For, first, though the course of Ecclesiastical History be 
thus dark, there is always a bright side to be found in Eccle- 
siastical Biography. 
III. Use of Study the lives, study the thoughts, and hymns, and 
graphy of prayers, study the death-beds of good men. They are the 
good men. ^ nQt onl ^ of the wor i^ 0 f t }, e Church. In them we 

see, close at hand, what on the public stage of history we see 
through every kind of distorted medium and deceptive 
refraction. In them we can trace the history, if not of 
"the Catholic Church," at least of "the Communion of 
" Saints." The Acta Sanctorum were literally, as a great 
French historian has observed, the only light, moral and 
intellectual, of the centuries, from the seventh to the ninth, 
which may without exaggeration be called "the dark ages." 2 
" Their glories," it has been well saidj " shine far beyond 
" the limits of their daily walk in life ; their odours are 
" wafted across the boundaries of unfriendly societies ; their 
" spiritual seed is borne away, and takes root and bears 
se manifold in fields far distant from the gardens of the Lord 
"where they were planted." 3 We have to be on our guard 
against the proverbial exaggerations of biographers; we 
have to disentangle fable and legend from truth and fact. 
But the profit is worth the risk ; the work will be its own 
reward. It is well known that, amidst the trials which beset 
Henry Martyn the missionary, on his voyage to India, the 
study in which he found his chief pleasure and profit was in 
the kindly notices of ancient saints which form the redeeming 

1 Arnold's Miscellaneous Works, p. 286. 

2 Guizot's Lectures on the Civilisation of France, c. xvii. 

3 Wilson's Bampton Lectures, p. 275. 



III. 



« 

Ecclesiastical History. 



Ixix 



points of Milner's " History of the Church." " I love " (so 
he writes in his diary) "to converse, as it were, with those 
<f holy bishops and martyrs, with whom I hope, through 
e( grace, to spend a happy eternity. . . . The example of 
"the Christian saints in the early ages has been a source of 
" sweet reflection to me. . . . The holy love and devout 
(( meditations of Augustine and Ambrose I delight to think 
" of. . . . No uninspired sentence ever affected me so much 
u as that of the historian, that to believe, to suffer, and to 
" love, was the primitive taste." 1 What he so felt and 
expressed may be, and has been, felt by many others. Such 
biographies are the common, perhaps the only common, 
literature alike of rich and poor. Hearts, to whom even 
the Bible speaks in vain, have by such works been roused 
to a sense of duty and holiness. However cold the response 
of mankind has been to other portions of ecclesiastical story, 
this has always commanded a reverential, even an excessive 
attention. 

Let us also remember, that what there is of instruction 
here is exactly of the kind which we ought to expect. 
Christianity affects the springs of action, rather than the 
actions themselves ; from its very beginning it has been seen 
in the lowly rather than the lofty places of the world ; in 
the manger of Bethlehem, in the peasants of Galilee, in the 
caves and dens of the earth : we may therefore fairly look 
for its chief influences out of the beaten track of history ; 
when we cannot trace it on the great highway of the world, 
we may fairly conclude that its effects will be found in the 
corners and pathways of life : — 

" Sprinkled along the waste of years, 
Full many a soft green isle appears : 
Pause where we may along the desert road, 
Some shelter is in sight, some sacred, safe abode." 



1 Memoir of Henry Martyn, pp. 127, 130, 136. 
d 3 



Ixx 



The Advantages of Introd. 



IV. Use of On the other hand, if we turn from the case of individual 
authority^ Christians to the case of the great masses of individuals 
the Church, w hi cn f orm the main bulk of the Church, they too have 
a lesson to teach, less palpable, but by no means to be 
despised, though it has been sometimes pushed to exag- 
geration. 

We know the old saying of Vincentius, " Quod semper, 
ie quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," ie Believe what has been 
"believed always, everywhere, and by everybody." It is 
needless to repeat the arguments by which it can be shown 
that, in a literal sense, this axiom is always either untrue or 
inapplicable. The solitary protest 1 is always to be honoured 
— the lonely martyr is avenged at last. Churches and 
nations, and whole generations, often seem to lose their 
reason. Baronius himself confesses that in the Church of 
the tenth century there was no pilot to guide the helm, no 
captain to command the crew, at the moment of its greatest 
need. 

But still the maxim of Vincentius contains a certain ele- 
ment of truth, which the facts of history entirely confirm. 
There is a common sense in the Church, as there is a common 
sense in the world, which cannot be neglected with im- 
punity ; and there is an eccentricity in individuals and in 
sects which always tends to lead us, if not into dangerous, at 
least into crooked paths. The error which is held by great, 
ancient, and national communities, often loses its mischief, 
and entirely changes its meaning, when it becomes part of 
the general established belief. The truth which is held by 
a narrow sect often becomes error, from the mere fact of the 
isolation and want of proportion in which it is held. 2 The 



1 See Lecture VII. 

2 In the able essay by M. Kenan, " On the Future of Reli- 
gion " (Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 15, 1860), where he 
considers the prospects of the Catholic, the National, and the 
Sectarian principle, I venture to think that the gifted writer, in 



III. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



Ixxi 



strange folly of Christians persecuting Christians was first 
introduced on a large scale, not by the Orthodox, but by the 
heretics, of the fourth and fifth centuries. The fancies of 
Millenarians, however innocent and natural, and however 
widely diffused among small circles, have always been re- 
sisted by the robust sense of the universal Church. It is 
not, as a general rule, the larger, but the lesser congregations 
of Christendom, that have imposed the most minute and 
petty restrictions on opinion and practice. Whilst the 
Imperial, venerable, Orthodox Church of the whole East is 
content to repose on the short Creed of the first Councils, 
the little Church and State of Brunswick, under the auspices 
of Duke Julius, requires, or did require till recently, from 
its ministers a stringent subscription, not only to the three 
Creeds, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology for the Con- 
fession, and the Smalcaldic Articles, but to all that is con- 
tained in all the works of Luther, in all the works of 
Melanchthon, in all the works of Chemnitz. The " Mne 
Articles " of " the Evangelical Alliance " impose a yoke on 
the freedom of thought and conscience far heavier than that 
of the Thirty -nine Articles of the Church of England. 

In fact, the higher and wider is the sweep of vision, the 
more difficult is it to stumble at trifles, and make mountains 
out of molehills. Power, no doubt, is often frightfully 
abused, whether in the hands of ecclesiastics or of laymen ; 
but to both, if there be any nobleness of character on which 
to work, it brings far more moderation and largeness of 
heart than is attainable by even better men in inferior sta- 
tions. It was the charity and the wisdom of the Popes 
which protected the Jews in the middle ages against the 



the preference which lie awards to the third of these principles, 
has overlooked the historical proofs of its inferiority to either of 
the two former, in all that regards true toleration and comprehen- 
siveness, whatever may have been its services in other respects. 

d 4 



Ixxii The Advantages of Introd. 

fanatical attacks of individual zealots. The royal heart of 
the young King Edward was softer than the mercies even 
of a gentle prelate. Oliver Cromwell, when he came to 
wield the power of Church and State, of universities and of 
armies alike, was tolerant to a degree which his humbler 
followers were incapable of imitating or understanding. 

It is difficult to express the deference due to these con- 
siderations, without placing them below or above their just 
estimate. But they form too obvious, too important, I 
may add too consoling, an inference from the course of eccle - 
siastical events, to be omitted altogether. Let us receive 
the fact both as an encouragement and as a caution. What- 
ever other charges may be brought against the history of 
Christendom, and however much it may have embraced 
within or alongside of itself sallies of wild sectarianism, yet 
it cannot fairly be called the history of Fanaticism, or even 
of Enthusiasm. Grey hairs and high station and long 
experience, whether of individuals or of communities, have 
their own peculiar claims to respect. The movement of the 
Church to perfection has in it an element of solidity, of per- 
manence, and of prudence, as well as of fluctuation and pro- 
gress and zeal. 

V. Better But yet further, even when we consider more deeply the 
standing of darker points in our general view, a sense of unity emerges 

differences f r0 m the midst of disunion, a sense of success from the midst ©f 
and or 

unity. failure. Errors and truths which we are apt to ascribe to spe- 
cial sects, Churches, individuals, will often be seen to belong 
really to characters and principles which underlie and counter- 
sect the artificial distinctions on the surface of controversy. 
The ingenious essays in which Archbishop Whately traces 
" the errors of Romanism " to the general fallacies latent in 
every creed and every Church, might be extended to all 
kinds of theological division. The celebrated treatise of 
Bossuet on " the Variations of Protestantism " might be 
overlaid by an instructive work on a larger basis, in a more 



III. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



lxxiii 



generous spirit, and with a nobler object, " the Variations 
u of the Catholic Church," showing how wide a range of 
diversities even the most ancient and exclusive communities 
have embraced ; how many opposing principles, practices, 
and feelings, like the creeks or valleys of some narrow 
territory, overlap, traverse, enfold, and run parallel with 
each other into the very heart of the intervening country, 
where we should least expect to find them. Reformers, 
before the Reformation ; Popes, in chairs not of S. Peter ; 
" new presbyter but old priest writ large ;" " old foes with 
" new faces ; " heresy under the garb of orthodoxy, ortho- 
doxy under the garb of heresy ; they who hold, according to 
the ancient saying, ra alpsriKa KaOdkitcwS} and they also who 
hold ra /ca9o\ifca alpsTiicSss ; — strange companions will be 
thus brought together from the east and from the west, from 
the north and from the south. Pelagius lurks under the 
mitre of Chrysostom or the cowl of J erome ; Loyola will 
find himself by the side of Wesley ; J ohn Knox will recog- 
nise a fellow-worker in Hildebrand ; the austerities of Bene- 
dict, the intolerance of Dominic, will find their counterpart 
at Geneva and in Massachusetts ; the missionary zeal of the 
Arian Ulfilas, of the Jesuit Xavier, and of the Protestant 
Schwarz will be seen to flow from the same source. The 
judgment of history will thus far be able to anticipate the 
judgment of Heaven, and to supersede with no doubtful 
hand the superficial concords and the superficial discords 
which belong to things temporal, by the true separation and 
the true union which belong to things eternal. 

But it is not only as a matter of wisdom and charity, but vi. Evi- 
as a ground of Christian evidence, that a large view of eccle- ^®" e c | ™ n ~ 
siastical differences is specially useful. In the diversity of t] J e c ^ u . th . 
the Church will be found a more powerful argument for the anity. 
divine origin of Christianity itself, than in the most perfect 
unity. It is not, humanly speaking, surprising that a re- 
ligion should sustain itself from age to age in the same race 



Ixxiv 



The Advantages of Introd. 



and country. We argue truly that such a restriction was 
needed as a support, not for the strength, but for the infir- 
mities of Judaism ; we argue truly against the universal truth 
of Mahonietanism, that it has never been able permanently 
to establish itself in any but an Eastern climate. But the 
distinguishing characteristic of the Christian Church has 
been, that it has assumed different forms, and yet not 
perished in the process ; that the gulf, however wide, which 
separates Greek from Latin, and both from Protestant, has 
• yet not been wide enough to swallow up the common Chris- 
tianity which has been transmitted from one to the other. 
And, in like manner, to recognise the influence of races, in- 
stitutions, and political convulsions on the history of the 
Church, is assuredly, not to diminish, but to exalt its impor- 
tance to men and to nations ; not to underrate its mission, 
but to represent it in its full grandeur. Nothing less than 
one of the prime agencies of the world could be so inter- 
woven with the progress of great events, or in its different 
manifestations fall in so readily with the broad lines of de- 
marcation which Nature herself has drawn between the 
various branches of the human family. 
VII. Les- And, yet further, the very imperfections and failings of 

sons from ^ e Ch urc h may tend to give us both a more sober and a 
the failings J . 

of the more hopeful view of its ultimate prospects. The alarms, 
the dangers, the persecutions, the corruptions through which 
it has safely passed, are so many guarantees that it is itself 
indestructible. The fact that these obstructions to Christian 
truth and goodness are found, not in one Church only, but in 
all, instead of causing restlessness and impatience, ought to 
dispose us to make the best of our lot, whatever it be. We 
learn that every Church partakes of the faults, as well as of 
the excellencies, of its own age and country ; that each is 
fallible as human nature itself; that each is useful as a means, 
none perfect as an end. To find Christ or Antichrist ex- 
clusively in any one community is against charity and against 



III. Ecclesiastical History. Ixxv 

humility, but, above all, against the plain facts of history. 
Let us hold this truth firmly, and we shall have then secured 
ourselves against two of the worst evils which infest the well- 
being of religious communities, the love of controversy and 
the love of proselytising. 

Every such reflection forces us back on a consideration VIII. Ad- 
which is both a chief safeguard and a chief advantage of ^con^ai-^ 
Ecclesiastical History, the comparison which it suggests ciiiastSal 
between what the Church is, and what in the Scriptures it History 
was intended to be : between what it has been, and what Scriptures, 
from the same source we trust that it may be. 

It is hard to say whether, by such a comparison, the study 
of the Bible or the study of Ecclesiastical History is most 
the gainer. 

What is the history of the Church 1 but a long commen- 
tary on the sacred records of its first beginnings ? It is a 
fulfilment of prophecy in the truest and widest sense of that 
word ; a fulfilment, not merely of predictions of future 
events, but of that higher and deeper spirit of prophecy 
which "makes manifest the secrets of the heart." The 
thoughts and deeds of good Christians are still, as in the 
Apostolic times, a living Bible ; an Epistle, a Gospel, 
({ written on the hearts of men, known and read of all men." 
The various fortunes of the Church are the best explanation, 
as they are the best illustration, of the parables which un- 
fold the course of the kingdom of heaven. The failures of 
the Church are but the fulfilments of the mournful, almost 
pensive, anticipations of its history (how unlike the tri- 
umphant exultations of so many human founders of human 



1 " The fulness of the stream is the glory of the fountain ; and 
it is because the Ganges is not lost among its native hills, but 
deepens and widens until it reaches the ocean, that so many pil- 
grimages are made to its springs." — Bishop ThirlwalVs Charge, 
1857, p. 81. 



Ixxvi 



The Advantages of 



Introd. 



sects !), — " not peace, but a sword ;" " a fire kindled on the 
" earth ;" (S a savour of death unto death." 

The actual effects, the manifold applications, in history, 
of the words of Scripture, give them a new instruction, and 
afford a new proof of their endless vigour and vitality. Look 
through any famous passage of the Old, or yet more of the 
New, Testament: there is hardly one that has not borne 
fruit in the conversion of some great saint, or in the turn it 
has given to some great event. At a single precept of the 
Gospels, Antony went his way and sold all that he had ; at 
a single warning of the Epistles, Augustine's hard heart was 
melted beneath the fig-tree at Milan ; a single chapter of 
Isaiah made a penitent believer of the profligate Rochester. 
A word to S. Peter has become the stronghold of the 
Papacy; a word from S. Paul has become the stronghold 
of Luther. The Psalter alone, by its manifold applications 
and uses in after times, is a vast palimpsest, written over 
and over again, illuminated, illustrated, by every conceivable 
incident and emotion of men and of nations ; battles, wan- 
derings, dangers, escapes, death-beds, obsequies, of many 
ages and countries, rise, or may rise, to our view, as we 
read it. 

Nor is it only in special passages that the history of the 
Church sets before us the greatness of its origin. It is on 
looking back upon a mountain range which we have left, 
that we often for the first time understand its true character. 
The peaks, which in a nearer view were all confused, now 
stand out distinct ; the line of heights is drawn out in its 
full length ; the openings and passes disentangle themselves 
from the surrounding valleys ; the nearer and lesser objects 
now sink to their proper level, as they are seen backed and 
overtopped by the lofty range behind and above them. 
Even so do we, at the distance of eighteen hundred years, 
see in many respects the truths of Scripture with a clearer 
vision than they who lived even amidst their recesses or at 



III. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



Ixxvii 



their very foot. We who have traversed the long levels of 
Ecclesiastical History can see what they of old time could 
not see, the elevation of those divine words and acts, as 
compared with any that followed. We can see, as they 
could not see, the wide circumference of objects which those 
words and acts overlooked, embraced, comprehended. We 
can distinguish, as they could not distinguish, the relative 
importance, the due proportions, the general outline, of the 
various heights, and can sketch our picture and direct our 
steps accordingly. 

The very extent of our departure from the original truth ; 
the very violence which in successive ages has been put 
upon the sacred words ; the attempts to warp them by false 
interpretation or by false teaching, or to overlay them by 
theories or forgeries of a later date, only bring before us in 
a more lively and instructive form what was the point from 
which we started, what is the difference of the point to which 
Ave have now arrived. In that coarse but instructive tale 
in which Dean Swift described the development of Ec- 
clesiastical History, when the father's will is at last brought 
to light by the three contending brothers, nothing could more 
clearly impress upon them the sense of its true meaning 
than the recollection of the artifices by which they had been 
induced to discover in it the sanction of their own deviations 
from it. " If not totidem sententiis, then totidem verbis ; if 
" not totidem verbis, then totidem Uteris." So, with hardly an 
exaggeration, has Scripture been often handled. The next 
best clue to reading an oracle straightforwardly and honestly, 
is to be aware that we have been reading it backwards. 
The allegorical interpretations given by the early Fathers 
are virtual confessions that they have not attempted to ex- 
pound the original meaning of the sacred authors. The 
variations of reading, which copyists of later times have in- 
troduced into the text of the New Testament, are positive 
proofs that they found the actual words insufficient to 



lxxviii 



The Advantages of Introd. 



express the altered views of their own age. The attention 
paid to passages manifestly of secondary importance, and 
the neglect of passages manifestly of the very highest im- 
portance, may serve as gauges both of what we have 
hitherto lost and of what we may still hope to gain, in the 
application of the Scriptures to the wants of Ecclesiastical 
History. 

IX. Future This peculiar relation of the Bible to the history of the 
SesSsti- Church invites one concluding train of thought. When, 
calHistoiy. sixteen years ago, a revered teacher stood in this place, and, 
after a survey of the field of Modern History, asked whether 
there were in the existing resources of the nations of man- 
kind any materials for a new epoch, distinct from those 
which have gone before, you may remember how he 
answered that there were none. What if the same question 
be asked with regard to the prospects of Ecclesiastical 
History ? We have seen that four great phases have passed 
over the fortunes of the Church : is there likely to be 
another? We are told that the resources of nation and 
race are exhausted for the outer world in which our history 
moves : are there any stores of spiritual strength yet un- 
explored in the forces of the Christian Church ? With all 
reverence and with all caution, may not the reflections 
which we have just made encourage us to hope that such a 
mine does exist, a virgin mine, in the original records of 
Christianity? We need not speculate on the probable 
destinies of any Christian system or community now ex- 
isting in the world ; w r e need not determine whether, as our 
own Protestant historian has declared, the Papacy may still 
be standing ages hence 1 , after England shall have passed 
away ; or whether, with the chiefs of Italian liberalism, we 
are to believe that it is steadily advancing year by year to 
the grave already dug to receive it. Still less need we 
compose volumes of future Ecclesiastical History out of 



1 Macaulay's Essays, vol. iii. p. 209. 



III. 



Ecclesiastical History. 



lxxix 



fancied interpretations of the Apocalypse,, in defiance alike 
of all human experience, all divine warnings. But a serious 
comparison of the actual contents of the Scriptures with the 
actual course of ecclesiastical events -almost inevitably brings 
us to the conclusion that the existing materials, principles, 
and doctrines of the Christian Religion are far greater than 
have ever yet been employed ; that the Christian Church, if 
it ever be permitted or enabled to use them, has a long lease 
of new life, and new hope before it, such as has never yet 
been enjoyed. Look at the Bible on the one hand, and His- 
tory on the other ; see what are the points on which the 
Scriptures lay most emphatic stress ; think how much of the 
sap and life of Christendom has run to leaf, and not to 
fruit ; remember how constant is the protest of Scripture, 
and, we may add, of the best spirits of the universal Church, 
against preferring any cause of opinion or ceremony to jus- 
tice, holiness, truth, and love ; observe how constantly and 
steadily all these same intimations point to One Divine 
Object, and One only, as the centre and essence of Chris- 
tianity : — we cannot, with these experiences, hesitate to say, 
that, if the Christian Church be drawing to its end, or if it 
continue to its end with no other objects than those which 
it has hitherto sought, it will end with its acknowledged 
resources confessedly undeveloped, its finest hopes of use- 
fulness almost untried and unattempted. It will have been 
like an ungenial spring cut short in full view of the summer, 
a stately vessel wrecked within the very sight of the shore. 

It may be that the age for creating new forms of the Indica- 
Christian faith is past and gone, that no new ecclesiastical History, 
boundaries will henceforth be laid down amongst men. It 
is certain that in the use of the old forms is our best chance 
for the present. Use them to the utmost ; use them thread- 
bare, if you will : long experience, the course of their his- 
tory, their age and dignity, have made them far more elastic, 
far more available, than any that we can invent for ourselves. 



Ixxx 



The Advantages of 



Introd. 



But do not give up the study of the history of the Church, 
either in disgust at what has been, or in despair at what 
may be. The history of the Christian Church, no less than 
of the Jewish, bears witness to its own incompleteness. 
The words which describe its thoughts constantly betray 
their deflection from the original ideas which they were 
meant to express ; " Church, Gospel, Catholic, Evangeli- 
cal," the very word <s Ecclesiastical," as I noticed in first 
speaking of it, are now too often the mere shadows, some- 
times even the exact opposites, of their ancient, orthodox, 
scriptural meaning. We need only trace the steps of their 
gradual descent to their present signification, in order to see 
how far they, and we with them, have to ascend again before 
we can reach the point from which they started, the point 
to which we have still to attain. Read, too, the expressions 
of the best and wisest Christians in their best and wisest 
moments. Take them, not in the passion of youth, not in 
the heat of controversy, not in the idleness of speculation, 
but in the presence of some great calamity, or in the calmness 
of age, or in the approach of death. Take that admirable 
summary of mature Christian experience, which ought to be 
in the hands of every student of Ecclesiastical History, — 
one might well add, of every student of theology, of every 
English minister of religion, — which is contained in Baxter's 
review of his own narrative of his life and times. 1 See how 
he there corrects the narrowness, the sectarianism, the dog- 
matism of his youth, by the comprehensive wisdom acquired 
in long years of persecution, of labour, and devotion. Let 
us hope that what he has expressed as the result of his 
individual experience, we may find and appropriate in the 
collective experience of the old age of the Church. 
Indications Then turn and observe how with this best witness of 
ture. CnP Christendom, the best witness of Christianity, as set forth 

1 The whole passage may be conveniently read in Words- 
worth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. v. pp. 559—597. 



III. Ecclesiastical History. lxxxi 

in the Scriptures, entirely agrees. Take any of the chapters 
of the Old or New Testament, to which Prophets and 
Apostles appeal as containing, in their judgment, the sum 
and substance of their message ; take, above all, the summary 
of all Evangelical and Apostolical truth in the Four Gospels. 
Read them parallel with the so-called religious wars and 
controversies of former ages. Read them parallel with the 
so-called enlightenment, and the so-called religious sects and 
parties and journals, of our own age. Read, and fear, and 
hope, and profit, by the extent of the contrast. 

Doubtless there is much in the study of the Scriptures 
that is uncertain and difficult. But this is nothing in com- 
parison with the light they have still to give, both in checking 
our judgment of the past, in guiding our judgment of the 
present and future. We may in former times have gone 
too much by their, letter and too little by their spirit ; but 
it has been far oftener our fault that we have gone neither 
by letter nor by spirit ; it has far oftener happened that, 
however much the spirit may be above the letter, yet the 
letter is far beyond the spirit in which we have often been 
accustomed to deal with it. Each age of the Church has, 
as it were, turned over a new leaf in the Bible, and found a 
response to its own wants. We have a leaf still to turn, a 
leaf not the less new because it is so old, not the less full of 
consequences because it is so simple. 

Of all the advantages which Ecclesiastical History can 
yield, this stimulus to a study of the Scriptures is the most 
important. That study, except to a limited extent, does not 
fall within our sphere ; the province of History, as such, 
will be sufficient to employ us ; and it will indeed be an 
ample reward, if I can be enabled, in any way, to give a 
new charm or a firmer basis to this great subject. But it 
would be a reward and an object far higher, if I could, in 
however slight a measure, make it point to the grandeur 
and the truth of that which is beyond itself; if the study 

e 



lxxxii Advantages of Eccl. History. Introd. ill. 



of the history of the Church should, by way of contrast, 
or illustration, or comparison, rouse any one to a deeper 
faith in the power and the design of the Bible, a stronger 
belief in what it has already done, a higher hope and clearer 
understanding of what its words may yet effect for us 1 9 in 
the chapters of living history in which we or the coming 
generations may bear a part. 

I ventured to commence this Introductory Course with the 
description of the treasures which were shown to the Pil- 
grim in the palace by the highway-side ; I will close it with 
the prospect which he beheld thence on the far distant 
horizon, described in words too sacred, in part, perhaps, 
for us to use, but not too sacred for the truth and the hope 
which I have humbly, but in all seriousness, endeavoured to 
set before you as the conclusion of the whole matter : — 

" Then I saw in my dream, that on the. morrow he got up 
{( to go forwards, but they desired him to stay till the next 
" day also ; and then, said they, we will, ... if the day be 
" clear, . . . show you the Delectable Mountains ; which, 
" said they, would further add to his comfort, . . . because 
ee they were nearer to the desired haven than where at 
" present he was. ... So he consented and staid. When 
ce the morning was up, they had him to the top of the house, 
" and bid him look south. So he did, and behold, ... at a 
" great distance, ... he saw a most pleasant mountainous 
" country — beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all 
<f sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very 
(( delectable to behold. Then he asked the name of the 
" country. They said it was . . . ( Immanuel's Land ; ' . . . 
" ' and it is as common,' said they, 6 as this hill is to and for 
(t all the pilgrims. And when thou comest there, . . . from 
(l thence thou mayest see to the gate of the Celestial City, 
" ... as the shepherds that live there will make appear.'" 

1 For the same thoughts, powerfully expressed, I cannot forbear 
to refer to the Essays of Dr. Temple (pp. 44 — 48) and Professor 
Jowett (pp. 404—418). 



LECTURES 



HISTORY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



e 2 



WORKS FOR REFERENCE, ON THE HISTORY OF 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



The following are the chief works which may be consulted 
with advantage on the general condition of the Eastern Church : 

1. Oriens Christianas. By Michael le Quien. (French Domini- 
can.) 1661 — 1732. An account of the Eastern dioceses, their 
extent, and the occupants of their sees from their foundation 
to 1732. 3 vols, folio. 

2. Bibliotheca Orientalis. By Joseph Simon Assemanni. (Ma- 

ronite Archbishop, Librarian of the Vatican.) 1687 — 1768. 
An account of the writers and manuscripts of Syria, Arabia, 
Egypt, and ^Ethiopia. 

3. Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio. By Eusebius Renaudot. 

(French Jesuit.) 1646—1720. 2 vols. 4to. 

4. Nomocanon. (Collection of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the 
Greek Church, by Photius.) Edited at Paris, 1615. 

5. Euchologium (sive Rituale Gr cecum). Jacob Goar. 1647. 

6. Codex Liturgicus Ecclesice Orientalis. H. A. Daniel. Leipsic, 

1853. 

7. Libri Symbolici Ecclesice Orientalis. (Collection of modern 

Confessions of the Eastern Church.) Kimmel, at Jena, 
1843. 

8. Lives of the Eastern Saints are contained in the Menologium 

Grcecum, or in the Latin translations of Symeon Metaphra- 
stes, in the Vitce Sanctorum of Laurence Surius. 1587. 

9. Account of the eminent Writers of the Greek Church in Fa- 

bricius, Bibliotheca Grceca, vols, vii — xii. 

10. De Grcecce Ecclesice hodierno Statu. By Thomas Smith. 

1698. 

11. State of the Greek Church. By J. Co veil, D.D. 1722. 



Ixxxvi 



Works for Reference, 



12. Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church. By John King, 

Chaplain at St. Petersburg. 1787. 

13. History of the Holy Eastern Church. By John Mason 

Neale, M.A., Warden of Sackville College. Of this laborious 
and learned work two portions only have yet appeared : 

1. The Patriarchate of Alexandria. (See infra.) 

2. The General Introduction. 2 vols. 8vo. 1850. 

To this, rather than to more recondite sources, I have 
usually referred the reader for the constitution and customs 
of the Oriental Church. I may also mention an excellent 
essay on The Eastern Church, which appeared as a review 
of Mr. Neale's work, in the Edinb. Rev. vol. cvii. p. 322. 

For the general sentiment of the Eastern Churches a few works 
out of many are selected : 

1. Dissertations on the Orthodox, or Eastern, Communion. By 

William Palmer, M.A., late Fellow of Magdalen College, 
Oxford, and Deacon. 1853. Written originally in Ro- 
maic, and translated by the author. 

2. Question Religieuse de V Orient et de V Occident. Moscow, 

1856. Lettres a un Ami sur V Office Divin. By Andrew 
Nicolaivitch Mouravieff. St. Petersburg, 1850. 

3. Quelques Mots par un Chretien Orthodoxe. Paris, 1853 ; 

Leipsic, 1855, 1858. (See Lecture XII.) 

4. Introduction to Orthodox Theology. By Macarius, Rector 

of the Ecclesiastical Academy at St. Petersburg. Trans- 
lated into French. 1857. 

On more special subjects : 

I. Chaldeans and Nestorians. 

1. Bibliotheca Orientalis j vol. iv. (Assemanni.) 

2. The Nestorians and their Rituals. By the Rev. G. P. 

Badger. 1852. 

II. Armenia. 

1. Hist. dArmenie et d'Ethiopie et des Indes. By Mathurin 

de La Croze. (French merchant and scholar.) 1661— 
1739. 

2. Haxthausen's Trans- Caucasia. Translated into English. 

1854. 



on the Eastern Church. lxxxvii 



III. Syria. 

1. Bibliotheca Orient, vol. ii. (Assemanni.) 

2. The Syrian Churches. By J. W. Etheridge. 1846. 

IV. Egypt. 

. 1. Eutychius's Ann. Patriarch. Alexandrin. (See p. 64.) 

2. Renaudot's Historia Patriarcharum Jacobitarum. 1713. 

3. Lane's Modern Egyptians. (Supplement.) 1833. 

4. Sharpe's Egypt. (From the earliest times to the Arab 

conquest). 1846. 

5. Neale's Patriarchate of Alexandria. 2 vols. 8vo. 1847. 

V. Abyssinia. 

1. La Croze (ut supra). 

2. Hist. JEthiopice. By Job Ludolf. (German lawyer.) 1624 

—1714. 

3. Harris's Highlands of Ethiopia. 1844. 

VI. Constantinople and the Greek Church. 

1. The Byzantine Historians. Edited by Niebuhr. 

2. Dufresne's Glossarium Med. et Infim. Grcecitatis. 

3. History of the Byzantine Empire. By G. Finlay. 1853. 

4. De Grcecis Illustrious (the Greek scholars of the fifteenth 

century). By Humphrey Hody, D.D. 1742. 

VII. Russia. 

See Prefaces to Lectures IX. X. XI. XII. 

For a summary history of the Eastern Church, see — 

Gibbon, cc. 17, 20, 21, 23, 26—28, 32, 40, 47—49, 51, 54, 55, 
60, 61, 66—68. 

Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History (under the chapters, on " the 
Oriental Churches "). 



LECTURES 

ON 

THE EASTERN CHURCH, 



LECTUKE I. 

THE EASTEKN CHUKCH. 

The Eastern Church occupies a vast field of Eccle- 
siastical History. But it is a field rather of space 
than of time. It is marked out rather by tracts of 
land and races of men than by successive epochs in 
the progress of events, of ideas, or of characters. 
Hence has arisen the frequent remark that, pro- 
perly speaking, the Eastern Church has no history. 
The nations which it embraces have been, for the most 
part,' so stationary, and their life so monotonous, that 
they furnish few subjects of continuous narration. 
The influence which it has exercised on the onward 
course of religious opinion has been so slight, that 
by tacit consent it has almost dropped out of the 
notice of ecclesiastical historians. The languages 
in which its records and its literature are composed 
are such as to repel even the learned classes of the 
West ; even the Greek dialect of the East after the 
VOL. i. B 



2 



The Eastern Church. 



Lect. I. 



sixth century becomes almost intolerable to the eye 
and the ear of the classical student. Its system has 
produced hardly any permanent works of practical 
Christian benevolence. With very few exceptions, 
its celebrated names are invested with no stirring 
associations. It seems to open a field of interest to 
travellers and antiquarians, not to philosophers or 
historians. 

Is there anything in such a subject to repay the 
labour or even the attention of a theological student ? 
Had we not better pass on at once to more fertile 
and more genial regions ? Can any Englishman, can 
any Protestant, nay, can any European, be fairly 
asked to look backwards on a field which the course 
of civilisation seems to have left far behind ? 

All this and much more may be said. Yet, on 
these very grounds, I feel that the Professor of Eccle- 
siastical History is bound, if possible, once for all, to 
cast that one backward glance before he moves on- 
ward. Once plunged in the turmoil of the West, 
he will have no leisure to turn to the repose of the 
East. And further, although few may enter into 
the details of its history or constitution, there are 
some general points of view under which the Eastern 
Church may be profitably considered. Out of the 
blank which th^ larger part of its annals presents, 
emerge some salient scenes and epochs which be- 
yond question touch the universal destinies of man- 
kind. There are some peculiar reasons why the 
study even of the near West may always gain by the 
study of the distant East. 

This general view of the Oriental Church, — these. 



Lect. I. The Divisions of the Eastern Church. 



leading divisions in its history, — these reasons for 
devoting a short space to its study, — it will be my 
endeavour to set forth in the present Lecture. 

I. I have said that the field of Eastern Christen- General 
dom is a comparatively untrodden field. It is out of V the° D 
of sight, and therefore out of mind. But there is a church, 
wise German proverb which tells us that it is good, 
from time to time, to be reminded that " Behind the 
mountains there are people to be found." u Hinter 
dem Berge sind auch Leute." This, true of all large 
bodies of the human family from whom we are sepa- 
rated by natural or intellectual divisions, is eminently 
true of the whole branch of the Christian family that 
lies in the far East. Behind the mountains of our 
knowledge, of our civilisation, of our activity — be- 
hind the mountains, let us also say, of our ignorance, 
of our prejudice, of our contempt, is to be found 
nearly a third part of Christendom — one hundred » 
millions of souls professing the Christian faith. Even 
if we enter no further into their history, it is important 
to remember that they are there. No theory of the 
Christian Church can be complete which does not take 
some account of their existence. The proper dis- 
tances, the lights and shades, of the foreground 
which we ourselves occupy, of the prospect which we 
ourselves overlook, cannot be rightly represented 
without bearing in mind the enormous, dark, per- 
haps unintelligible, masses which form the back- 
ground that closes the retrospect of our view. 

But the Oriental Church has claims to be consi- 
dered over and above its magnitude and its obscurity. 
By whatever name we call it — "Eastern," " Greek," or 

B 2 



4 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



" Orthodox" — it carries us back, more than any other 
existing Christian institution, to the earliest scenes 
and times of the Christian religion. Even though 
the annals of the Oriental Patriarchates are, for the 
most part, as regards the personal history of their 
occupants, a series of unmeaning names, the recol- 
lections awakened by the seats of their power are 
of the most august kind. Jerusalem, Antioch, Alex- 
andria, are centres of local interest which none can 
see or study without emotion. And the Churches 
which have sprung up in those regions retain the 
ancient customs of the East, and of the primitive 
age of Christianity, long after they have died out 
everywhere else. Look for a moment at the coun- 
tries included within the range of the Oriental 
Churches. What they lose in historical they gain in 
geographical grandeur. Their barbarism and their 
degradation have bound them to the local peculiarities 
from which the more progressive Church of the West 
has shaken itself free. It is a Church, in fact, not 
of cities and villages, but of mountains, and rivers, 
and caves, and dens of the earth. The eye passes 
from height to height, and rests on the successive 
sanctuaries in which the religion of the East has 
intrenched itself, as within large natural fortresses, 
against its oppressors — Athos in Turkey, Sinai in 
Arabia, Ararat in Armenia, the Cedars of Lebanon, 
the catacombs of KieiF, the cavern of Megaspelion, the 
cliffs of Meteora. Or we see it advancing up and 
down the streams, or clinging to the banks, of the 
mighty rivers which form the highways and arteries 
of the wide plains of the East. The Nile still holds 



Lect. L the Eastern Church. 



5 



its sacred place in the liturgies of Egypt. The 
Jordan, from Constantine downwards, has been the 
goal of every Eastern pilgrim. Up the broad stream 
of the Dnieper sail the first apostles of Russia. Along 
the Yolga and the Don cluster the mysterious settle- 
ments of Russian nonconformity. 

In this natural framework, — with that strong iden- 
tity of religion and race so familiar to the East, so 
difficult to be understood in the West, — may be 
traced three main groupes of Churches, which we 
will proceed to distinguish. 

1. The first groupe contains those isolated frag- TheNa- 
ments of an earlier Christendom, which emerge here Heretical 

Churches 

and there from the midst of Mahometanism and 0 f the re- 
heathenism in Africa and Further Asia. In the moteEas ' 
strict language of ancient theology they must be 
called heretical sects. But they are in fact the 
National Churches of their respective countries, pro- 
testing against the supposed innovations 1 of the see 
of Constantinople, and holding with a desperate fide- 

1 It must be remarked that a confusion runs through all these 
Churches from a tripartite division, growing out of their relations 
with the Churches from which they have parted, or which have 
parted from them : 1. The National or so-called heretical Church 
of each country. 2. The Orthodox branch of each Church, in com- 
munion with the see of Constantinople. 3. The " United " or 
"Catholic" branch, consisting of converts to the Roman Catholic 
Church. As a usual rule, most writers of the Greek or Orthodox 
Church, as well as of our own, in speaking of these Churches, mean 
only the second of these two divisions; most writers of the Roman 
Catholic Church only the third. For the sake of perspicuity, I 
confine myself in each case to the first or national division in each 
of the groupes of which I speak. A masterly sketch of these 
heretical communions, with the main authorities on each, is found 
in Gibbon, 47th chapter. 

b 3 



6 The Divisions of Lect. I. 

lity to forms and doctrines of earlier date. Eastern- 
most of all the Eastern Churches, easternmost in 
thought and custom always, and usually easternmost 
in situation also, they supply, in the wild and ro- 
mantic interest of their position and of their habits, 
their almost total want of theological literature or 
historical events. The characteristic fable of Prester 
John — the invisible Apostle of Asia — the imperial 
priestly potentate in the remote East, or the remote 
South \ fills up in their traditions the vacant space 
which in Europe was occupied by the Pope of Rome 
and the Emperor of Constantinople. 
The a) The " Chaldaean Christians 2 " called bv their 

dean "or opponents " Nestorians," are the most remote of 

Nestorian . _ 

Churches, these old separatists. Only the two first councils, 
those of Mca3a and Constantinople, have weight with 
them. The third — of Ephesus — already presents 
the stumblingblock of the decree which condemned 
Nestorius. Living in the secluded fastnesses of 
Kurdistan, they represent the persecuted remnant of 
the ancient Church of Central Asia. They trace 
their descent to the earliest of all Christian missions 
— the mission of Thaddseus to Abgarus. Their 
sacred city of Edessa is identical with the cradle of 
all ecclesiastical history — the traditional birthplace of 
Abraham. In their present seclusion they have 
been confounded, perhaps 3 have confounded them- 
selves, with the lost tribes of Israel. In their 
earlier days they sent forth missions on a scale ex- 

1 See Neale's Introduction, i. 114. 

2 See Neale, i. 145 ; Layard's Nineveh, i. 240. 

3 Asaliel Grant's Nestorians, 109. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



7 



ceeding those of any Western Church except the see 
of Kome in the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and for 
the time redeeming the Eastern Church from the usual 
reproach of its negligence in propagating the Gospel. 
Their chief assumed the splendid title of "Patriarch 
of Babylon," and their missionaries traversed the 
whole of Asia, as far eastward as China, as far south- 
ward as Ceylon. One colony alone remains of this 
ancient dominion, in extent even greater than the 
Papacy. The Christians of S. Thomas, as they are Christians 
called, are still clustered round the tomb of S. Thomas. 
Thomas, whether the Apostle, or the Nestorian mer- 
chant of the same name who restored if he did not 
found the settlement. In the tenth century they 
attracted the notice of Alfred, and, in the sixteenth 
century, of the Portuguese, and it was in reaction 
from the missionaries of Portugal that they finally 
exchanged their Nestorianism for the Monophysitism 
of Egypt and Syria. 1 

b) The Armenians 2 are by far the most powerful, The Ar- 
menian 

and the most widely diffused, in the groupe of purely Churches. 
Oriental Churches of which we are now speaking, and 
as such exercise a general influence over all of them. 
Their home is the mountain tract that encircles 

1 See Neale, i, 145 ; Buchanan's Christian Researches, 76 ; 
Swanston's Memoirs in Journal of Asiatic Researches, i. 129, ii. 
235, iv. 235, 248. 

2 Neale, i. 65, 104. " The Armenian nation is widespread and 
numerous as the waves of the sea. It is said to number fifteen 
millions of souls. This may be an exaggeration ; but the existence 
of more than eight millions we assert with confidence." — Haxt- 
hausen's Transcaucasia, 298, 325. 

jj 4 



8 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



Ararat. 1 But though distinct from all surrounding 
nations, they yet are scattered far and wide amongst 
them, extending their episcopate, and carrying on at 
the same time the chief trade of Asia. A race, a 
church of merchant princes, they are in quietness, in 
wealth, in steadiness, the " Quakers " of the East, 
" the Jews," if one may so call them, of the Oriental 
Church. They were converted by Gregory the 
Illuminator in the fourth century, whose dead hand 
is still used for continuing the succession of the 
patriarchs. The seat of the patriarchate is Etch- 
miazin, their sacred city. 2 Their canonical scrip- 
tures include two books in the Old and two in 
the New Testament acknowledged by no other 
Church; the history of Joseph and Asenath, the 
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Epistle 
of the Corinthians to S. Paul, and the third Epistle 
of S. Paul to the Corinthians. 3 Of the extreme 
Oriental Churches they furnish, by their wide dis- 
persion, the closest links with the West. The 
boundary of Russia runs across Mount Ararat. The 
Protestant and the Papal missionaries have won 
from them the most numerous converts. They call 
themselves orthodox. They are divided from the 
Constantinopolitan Church by an almost impercep- 
tible difference, arising, it is said, out of the acci- 
dental absence of the Armenian bishops from the 
Council of Chalcedon, whose decrees were therefore 
never understood, and therefore never received. 

1 For the appearance and traditions of Ararat, see Haxthausen's 
Transcaucasia, 190, 323. ^ 

2 Haxthausen, 283, 289, 304. 3 Curzon's Armenia, 225. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



9 



c) The Church of Syria is the oldest of all the The 
Gentile Churches. 1 In its capital, Antioch, the name Cheches, 
of " Christians " first arose : in the age of perse- 
cution, it produced Ignatius, and, in the age of the 
Empire, Chrysostom and John of Damascus. In the 
claim of Antioch to be founded by S. Peter, the 
Eastern Church 2 has often regarded itself as possess- 
ing whatever privileges can be claimed by the see of 
Rome on the ground of descent from the first Apostle. 
To the chief pastor of Antioch alone in the world by 
right belongs the title of u Patriarch." 3 The purely 
national Church of Syria is represented by two very 
different communions. The first is the Jacobite or The 
Monophysite Church, of which the patriarch resides Jacobltes - 
at Diarbekir. It has one peculiar custom, the trans- 
mission of the same name from prelate to prelate. The 
patriarch, doubtless after the first illustrious Bishop 
of Antioch, is always called Ignatius. 4 The other 
communion of Syria is, in like manner, the represen- 
tative both of a sect and a nation. The Maronites 5 , so The Ma- 
called from their founder Maro in the fifth century, 
comprise at once the only relics of the old Monothe- 
lite heretics, and the whole Christian population of 

1 The Church of Palestine and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem 
are hardly to be reckoned among the Churches of the East which 
I am here considering. It is a mere colony of the Greek Church, 
and its patriarch resides at Constantinople. Neale, i. 159. 

2 Travels of Macarius, 222, 224. (For this work see Lecture 
XL) 

3 Neale, i. 126. 

4 Ibid. 152, 153. In the doubtful derivation of their name 
from James the Apostle, or James the heresiarch of the sixth 
century, there is the same ambiguity as in the Christians of S. 
Thomas. 

5 Ibid. 153. 



o 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



Mount Lebanon, where the cedar grove and its 
neighbouring convent of Kanobin form their chief 
sanctuary. But their main peculiarity is this, that, 
alone of all the Eastern Churches, they have retained 
the close communion with the Latin Church which 
they adopted in the twelfth century through the 
Crusaders. Their allegiance is given to the see of 
Eome, and their learning has borne fruit in the West, 
through the labours of the two Assemans. They 
have lately acquired a more tragical claim on our 
interest through the atrocities perpetrated on their 
villages by their ancient hereditary enemies the 
Druses, provoked, it may be, but certainly not ex- 
cused, by Maronite aggression, or Latin intrigues. 

d) In the times of the early councils the Churches 
of Syria and Egypt were usually opposed : now they 
are united under the common theological name of 
Monophysite. Both alike take their stand, not on the 
four, but on the three first Councils, and reject the 
decrees of Chalcedon, and protest against the hetero- 
doxy, not only of the whole West, but of the whole 
East beside themselves. But the Church of Egypt 
is much more than the relic of an ancient sect. It is 
the most remarkable monument of Christian antiquity. 
It is the only living representative of the most vener- 
able nation of all antiquity. Within its narrow limits 
have now shrunk the learning and the lineage of 
ancient Egypt. The language of the Coptic services, 
understood neither by people nor priests, is the lan- 
guage, although debased, of the Pharaohs. The 
Copts are still, even in their degraded state, the most 
civilised of the natives : the intelligence of Egypt still 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



i 



lingers in the Coptic scribes, who are still, on this 
account, used as clerks in the offices of their con- 
querors, or as registrars of the water-marks of the 
Nile. 

They also represent the proud Church of old 
Alexandria. Their heresy is an exaggeration of the 
orthodoxy of Athanasius and Cyril. For this they 
denied the " human nature of Christ;" for this they 
broke off from the Byzantine empire, and ultimately 
surrendered to the Saracens. The Patriarch of 
Alexandria now resides at Cairo. 1 There is still, as 
in the first ages, a wide, distinction between the 
bishops and their head. He alone has the power of 
ordination: they, if they ordain at all, act only as 
his vicars. The Coptic Church alone confers ordina- 
tion, not by imposition of hands, but by the act of 
breathing. Alone also it has succeeded in prevent- 
ing the translation of bishops 2 , and preserves, in the 
most rigid form, the nolo episcopari of the patriarch. 3 

In the universal kiss, interchanged throughout 
the whole of a Coptic congregation ; in the prominent 
part taken by the children, who act as deacons ; in 
the union of social intercourse with worship ; in the 
turbaned heads and unshod feet of the worshippers, 
the Coptic service breathes an atmosphere of Oriental 

1 The ancient titles of Pope and (Ecumenical Judge seem now 
tcrbelong, not to the Coptic, but to the Greek Patriarch of Alex- 
andria. For the title "Pope" see Lecture III. The title of 
(Ecumenical Judge is derived (1) from the right of the Alex- 
andrian Church to fix the period of Easter (see Lecture V.), or 
(2) from Cyril's presidency in the Council of Ephesus. 

2 Neale's In trod. i. 112, 119; Church of Alexandria, ii. 99— 
102. 

3 Sec Lecture VII. 



I 2 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



and of primitive times fonnd in none of the more 
northern Churches, even of the East. 
TheAbys- But there is a daughter of the Coptic Church, yet 
Church, farther south, which is the extremest type of what 
may be called Oriental ultramontanism. The Church 
of Abyssinia, founded in the fourth century by the 
Church of Alexandria, furnishes the one example of a 
nation savage yet Christian ; showing us, on the one 
hand, the force of the Christian faith in maintaining its 
superiority at all against such immense disadvantages, 
and, on the other hand, the utmost amount of super- 
stition with which a Christian Church can be overlaid 
without perishing altogether. One 1 lengthened com- 
munication it has hitherto received from the West 
— the mission of the Jesuits. With this exception 
it has been left almost entirely to itself. Whatever 
there is of J ewish or of old Egyptian ritual preserved 
in the Coptic Church, is carried to excess in the 
Abyssinian. The likeness of the sacred ark 2 , called 
the ark of Zion, is the centre of Abyssinian devo- 
tion. To it gifts and prayers are offered. On it the 
sanctity of the whole Church depends. There alone 
the Jewish Sabbath is still observed as well as the 
Christian Sunday : they are the only true " Sabbata- 
rians " of Christendom. The u sinew that shrank," no 
less than the flesh of swine, hare, and aquatic fowl, is 
still forbidden to be eaten. Dancing still forms part 
of their ritual, as it did in the Jewish temple. The 

1 In a single point there is a trace of connection between the 
Church of Abyssinia and the ancient Church of North Africa ; 
namely, in the administration of milk and honey to the newly 
baptized. 

2 Harris's Ethiopia, iii. 132, 135, 137, 150, 156, 154—167. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



*3 



wild shriek which goes up at Abyssinian funerals is 
the exact counterpart of that which Herodotus heard 
in ancient Egypt. The polygamy of the Jewish 
Church lingers here after having been banished from 
the rest of the Christian world. 

Whatever, it may be added, of extravagant ritual- 
ism, of excessive dogmatism, of the fatal division 
between religion and morality, which disfigures to 
so large an extent the rest of Oriental Christianity, 
is seen in its most striking form in the usages 
of Abyssinia. The endless controversies respecting 
the natures of Christ, which have expired else- 
where, still rage in that barbarous country. 1 The 
belief in the efficacy of external rites to wash 
away sins is carried there to a pitch without a 
parallel. The greatest festival of all the year is the 
vast lustration, almost amounting to an annual bap- 
tism of the whole nation 2 , on the feast of Epiphany. 
One saint, elsewhere unrecognised, appears in the 
Ethiopian calendar ; Pilate is canonised, because he 
washed his hands and said, " I am innocent of the 
blood of this just man." 3 The moral creed of Abys- 
sinia is said to be thus summed up : — 

" That the Alexandrian faith is the only true belief. 

" That faith, together with baptism, is sufficient for justi- 
fication ; but that God demands alms and fasting as amends 
for sin committed prior to the performance of the baptismal 
rite. 

" That unchristened children are not saved. 
" That the baptism of water is the true regeneration. 
" That invocation ought to be made to the saints, because 
sinning mortals are unworthy to appear in the presence of 



1 Harris, iii. 190. 



2 Ibid. iii. 202. 



3 Neale, i. 806. 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



God, and because, if the saints be well loved, they will listen 
to all prayer. 

" That every sin is forgiven from the moment that the 
kiss of the pilgrim is imprinted on the stones of Jerusalem ; 
and that kissing the hand of a priest purines the body in like 
manner. 

<f That sins must be confessed to the priest, saints invoked, 
and full faith reposed in charms and amulets, more especially 
if written in an unknown tongue. 

" That prayers for the dead are necessary, and absolution 
indispensable; but that the souls of the departed do not 
immediately enter upon a state of happiness, the period 
being in exact accordance with the alms and prayers that 
are expended upon earth." 

This may have been coloured in passing through 
the mind of the European traveller. But his con- 
sciousness of the wretched state of the Church which 
he describes, gives more weight to the words of hope 
with which he concludes 1 his account : : — 

" Abyssinia, as she now is, presents the most singular 
compound of vanity, meekness, and ferocity ; of devotion, 
superstition, and ignorance. But, compared with other 
nations of Africa, she unquestionably holds a high station. 
She is superior in arts and in agriculture, in laws, religion, 
and social condition, to all the benighted children of the sun. 
The small portion of good which does exist may justly be 
ascribed to the remains of the wreck of Christianity, which, 
although stranded on a rocky shore, and buffeted by the 
storms of ages, is not yet wholly overwhelmed ; and from 
the present degradation of a people avowing its tenets, may 
be inferred the lesson of the total inefficacy of its forms 
and profession, if unsupported by enough of mental culture 
to enable its spirit and its truths to take root in the heart, 
and bear fruit in the character of the barbarian. There is, 



Harris, iii. 186. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 15 

perhaps, no portion of the whole continent to which Euro- 
pean civilisation might be applied with better ultimate 
results ; and although now dwindled into an ordinary king- 
dom, Habesh, under proper government and proper influence, 
might promote the amelioration of all the surrounding 
people, whilst she resumed her original position as the first 
of African monarchies." 

2. The next groupe in Eastern Christendom is The Greek 

1 » 1 . 1 . -. 11 Church. 

that which sometimes gives its name to the whole. 
It is, in fact, the Orthodox Imperial Church, from 
which those which we have hitherto described have 
broken off, and from which all those which we shall 
proceed to describe have been derived. 

The " Greek Church," properly so called, includes The repre- 
the widespread race which speaks the Greek lang Uage, of ancient 
from its southernmost outpost in the desert of Mount Greece> 
Sinai, through all the islands and coasts of the 
Levant and the Archipelago ; having its centre in 
Greece and in Constantinople. 1 It represents to us, 
in however corrupt and degraded a form, the old, 
glorious, world-inspiring people of Athens, Thebes, 
and Sparta. It is the means by which that people 
has been kept alive through four centuries of servi- 
tude. It was no Philhellenic enthusiast, but the 
grey-headed Germanus, Archbishop of Patras, who 
raised the standard of Greek independence : the first 
champion of that cause of Grecian liberty, in behalf 
of which in our own country the past generation was 
so zealous, and the present generation is so indif- 
ferent. The sanctuary of Greece, which is the 



1 See Neale, i. 26—31. 



i6 



The Divisions of 



Lect. I. 



sanctuary and refuge of the whole Eastern Church, 
is Athos — " the Holy Mountain." 1 

The Greek Church reminds us of the time when 
the tongue, not of Eome, but of Greece, was the 
sacred language of Christendom. It was a striking 
remark of the Emperor Napoleon, that the intro- 
duction of Christianity itself was, in a certain sense, 
the triumph of Greece over Kome ; the last and 
most signal instance of the maxim of Horace, 
" Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit." 2 The early 
Roman Church was but a colony of Greek Christians, 
or Grecised Jews. The earliest Fathers of the Western 
Church, Clemens, Irenseus, Hermas, Hippolytus, wrote 
in Greek, The early Popes were not Italians but 
Greeks. The name of " Pope " is not Latin but 
Greek — the common and now despised name of 
every pastor in the Eastern Church. It is true that 
this Grecian colour was in part an accidental conse- 
quence of the wide diffusion of the Greek language 
by Alexander's conquests through the East, and was 
thus a sign not so much of the Hellenic, as of the 
Hebrew and Oriental character of the early Christian 
communities. But the advantage thus given to the 
Byzantine Church has never been lost or forgotten. 
It is a perpetual witness that she is the mother and 
Eome the daughter. It is her privilege to claim a 
direct continuity of speech with the earliest times, to 

1 I am conscious that no one can speak fully of the Greek 
Church, who has not visited Mount Athos. In the absence of this 
privilege, I refer to Urquhart's Spirit of the East, 157, 169, and 
an excellent description in the Chr. Remembrancer, xxi. 288. 

2 Bertrand's Memoirs of Napoleon, i. 206. Compare Dean 
Milman's Latin Christianity, i. 27. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



7 



boast of reading the whole code of Scripture, old as 
well as new, in the language in which it was read 
and spoken by the Apostles. The humblest peasant 
who reads his Septuagint or Greek Testament in his 
own mother tongue, on the hills of Boeotia, may 
proudly feel that he has an access to the original 
oracles of divine truth, which Pope and Cardinal 
reach by a barbarous and imperfect translation ; that 
he has a key of knowledge, which in the West is only 
to be found in the hands of the learned classes. 

The Greek Church is thus the only living represen- Kepresen- 
tative of the Hellenic race, and speaks in the only SeByzL- 
living voice which has come down to us from the p£e. Em ~ 
Apostolic age. But its main characteristic is its lineal 
descent from the first Christian Empire. " Romaic, " 
not " Hellenic," is the name by which, from its long 
connection with the Roman Empire of Byzantium, 
the language of Greece is now known. " Roman " 
(To^aTo^), not " Greek," is the name by which (till 
quite recently) a Greek would have distinguished 
himself from the Mussulman population around him. 
Not Athens, not Alexandria, not even Jerusalem, 
but Constantinople, is the sacred city to which the 
eyes of the Greek race and of the Eastern Church 
are turned at this day. We can hardly doubt that it 
was the point to which the eyes of the whole Christian 
world were turned, when at the opening of the fourth 
century it rose as the first Christian city, at the com- 
mand of the first Christian Emperor, on a site which, 
by its unequalled advantages, was naturally marked 
out as the capital of a new world, as the inauguration 

vol. i. c 



1 8 The Divisions of Lect. I. 

of a new era. 1 The subsequent rise of the Papal city 
on the ruins of the old Pagan metropolis must not 
blind us to the fact that there was a period in which 
the Eastern and not the Western Rome was the true 
centre of Christendom. The modern grandeur of S. 
Peter's must not be permitted to obscure the effect 
which 'was produced on the taste and the feelings 
of the sixth century by the erection of S. Sophia. 
The learning of the Greek Church, which even down 
to the eleventh century excelled that of the Latin, 
in the fifteenth century directly contributed more than 
any other single cause to the revival of letters and the 
German Reformation. In Asia and in Constantinople 
it has long sunk under the barbarism of its conquerors. 
The But in the little kingdom of independent Greece, the 
Greece. ° f Greek clergy is still, within narrow limits, an en- 
lightened body. In it, if in any portion of Eastern 
Christendom, lives the liberal, democratic spirit of 
ancient Hellas. 

The North- 3. The third groupe of the Eastern Church con- 

cm tribes 

sists of those barbarian tribes of the North, whose 
conversion by the Byzantine Church corresponds to 
the conversion of the Teutonic tribes by the Latin 
Church. 

TheDanu- a) The first embraces the tribes on the banks of 

vinces. the Lower Danube ; the Sclavonic Bulgaria and 
Servia on the south ; the Latin or Romanic Wal- 

Buigaria. lachia and Moldavia on the north. 2 Bulgaria, which 
was the first to receive Christianity from the preach- 
ing of Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century, 

Servia. communicated it to the three others. Servia has 



1 See Lecture VI. 



2 Neale, i. 45, 47, 69. 



Lect. 1. the Eastern Chureh. 19 

since become independent of Constantinople, under a 
metropolitan or patriarch of its own, and in the reign 
of Stephen Dushan, in the twelfth century, presented 
a miniature of an Eastern Christian Empire. The 
Church of Wallachia and Moldavia is remarkable as Waiiachia 
being of Latin origin, yet Greek in doctrine and davi^ 01 " 
ritual; a counterpoise to the two Churches of 
Bohemia and Poland, which, being Sclavonic by race, 
are Latin by religion. To these national com- 
munities should be added the extensive colony of 
Greek Christians who, under the name of " Raitzen," The«Rait- 
occupy large districts in Hungary, and form the eX- Hungary, 
treme westernmost outposts of the Eastern Church. 
The ecclesiastical as well as the political importance 
of these several religious bodies has almost entirely 
turned on the position which they occupy on the 
frontier land of the West and East. This is an im- 
portance which will doubtless increase with each 
succeeding generation. But in their past ecclesiastical 
history, the only epochs fruitful of instruction will 
probably be found in the more stirring moments of 
Servian history 1 , and in the conversion 2 of Bulgaria. 
b) There remains the far wider field of the Church The 

n T) . Church of 

ot Kussia. Russia . 

If Oriental Christendom is bound to the past by 
its Asiatic and its Greek traditions, there can be no 
doubt that its bond of union with the present and the 
future is through the greatest of Sclavonic nations, 
whose dominion has now spread over the whole East 
of Europe, over the whole North of Asia, over a large 
tract of Western America. If Constantinople be the 



See Ranke's Hist, of Servia. 



2 See Lecture IX. 



20 



The Epochs of 



Lect. I. 



local centre of the Eastern Church, its personal head 
is, and has been for four centuries, the great potentate 
who, under the successive names of Grand Prince, 
Tzar, and Emperor, has reigned at Moscow and 
St. Petersburg. Not merely by its proximity of 
geographical situation, but by the singular gift of 
imitation with which the Sclavonic race has been 
endowed, is the Russian Church the present repre- 
sentative of the old Imperial church of Constantine. 
The Sclavonic alphabet is Greek. The Russian 
names of emperor, saint, and peasant are Greek. 
Sacred buildings, which in their actual sites in the 
East have been altered by modern innovations, are 
preserved for our study in the exact models made 
from them in earlier days by Russian pilgrims. 1 And 
in like manner, customs and feelings which have 
perished in Greece and Syria, may still be traced in 
the churches and monasteries of the North. When 
Napoleon called Alexander I., in bitter scorn, a 
Greek of the Lower Empire, it was a representation 
of the Tzar's position in a fuller sense than Napoleon 
intended or would have admitted. For good or for 
evil, as a check on its development or as a spur to its 
ambition, the Church and Empire of Russia have in- 
herited the religion and the policy of the New Rome 
of the Bosphorus far more fully than any western 
nation, even under Charlemagne himself, inherited 
the spirit or the forms of the Old Rome beside the 
Tiber. 2 

II. These are the geographical landmarks of the 
Eastern Church. What are its historical landmarks ? 

1 See Lecture XL 2 See Lecture IX. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



From the dead level of ohscure names which these Historical 
vast limits enclose, what leading epochs or series of theE^tern 
events can be selected of universal and enduring im- Church - 
portance ? 

1. The first great display of the forces of the i. Period 
Oriental Church was in the period of the early Coun- Councils, 
cils. The first seven General Councils, with all their 
leading characters, were as truly Eastern Councils, 
as truly the pride of the Eastern Church, as those 01 
Constance and Trent are of the Western. Almost all 
were held within the neighbourhood, most under the 
walls of Byzantium. All were swayed by the lan- 
guage, by the motives, by the feelings, of the Eastern 
world. 

Yet these Oriental Councils were " general," were 
" (Ecumenical" in a sense which fairly belonged to 
none besides. No Western Council has so fully ex- 
pressed the voice of Christendom, no assembly, civil or 
ecclesiastical, can claim to have issued laws which have 
been so long in force in so large a portion of the 
civilised world, as those which emanated from these 
ancient parliaments of the Byzantine Empire. And 
if many of their decrees have now become virtually 
obsolete, yet those of the first and most charac- 
teristic of the seven are still cherished throughout 
the East, and through a large portion of the West. 
If with Armenia and Egypt we stumble at the 
decrees of Chalcedon, if with the Chaldsean and 
Lutheran churches we are startled by the language 
of the fathers of Ephesus, if with the Latins we alter 
the creed of Constantinople, yet Christendom, with 
but few exceptions, receives the confession of the 

c 3 



22 



The Epochs of 



Lect. I. 



The Coun- first Council of Nicsea as the earliest, the most solemn, 
Nic»a. and the most universal expression of Christian theo- 
logy. In that assembly the Church and Empire first 
met in peaceful conference: the confessors of the 
Diocletian persecution came into contact with the 
first prelates of an established church : the father of 
dogmatical theology, and the father of ecclesiastical 
history met for the first time in the persons of 
Athanasius and Eusebius. The General Council of 
Mcsea may be considered both as the most signifi- 
cant of all the seven, and also as the most striking 
« scene, the most enduring monument of the Oriental 
Church at large. 1 
2, The rise 2. It is characteristic of Eastern history that we 
metanism. cannot lay it out, as in the West, by regular chrono- 
logical periods. The second epoch of universal im- 
portance in Eastern Christendom is the birth and 
growth of Mahometanism. All great religious move- 
ments which run parallel, even though counter, to 
Christianity, form a necessary part of ecclesiastical 
history. But the religion of Mahomet is essentially 
interwoven with the Eastern Church. Even without 
considering the directly Christian influences to which 
the Arabian teacher was subjected, no one can doubt 
that there are points which his system, in common 
with that of the Eastern Church, owes to its Orien- 
tal origin. In other points it is a rebound and re- 
action against that Church. The history of the * 
Greek and Sclavonic races can only be understood by 
bearing in mind their constant conflict with the 
Arabs, the Tartars, and the Turks. 2 

1 See Lectures H. III. IV. V. 2 See Lecture VIII. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 23 

3. The conversion and establishment of the Rus- 3. Thehis- 
sian Church, and through the Russian Church, of the Eussiaif 16 
Russian Empire, forms the third and most fertile Church ' 
epoch of the history of Oriental Christendom. 

It is enough to indicate the successive stages in 
the growth of the Empire, the rise and fall of the 
Patriarchate, the tragical struggle of Alexis and 
Nicon, the singular development of Russian dissent, 
the career and character of Peter the Great, hardly 
less remarkable in its religious than in its civil 
aspect. Every one of these events teems with 
dramatic, some with European interest, and every 
one of them is bound up with the history of the 
national Church, and therefore with the history of 
Eastern Christianity. 1 

III. These, then, are the principal divisions of General 

C ll Si Y £t C t C 1* " 

the history, properly so called. But before con- isticsof 

. -. , . -| , n . 1 . . , . the Eastern 

sidermg any single period apart trom the rest, it is church, 
important to observe the characteristics which, more 
or less, are common to all the parts alike, and which 
distinguish them all from the portion of Christendom 
to which we ourselves belong, whether we give to it 
the narrower name of the Latin, or the truer and 
more comprehensive title of the Western Church. In 
considering these differences it is not my intention to 
speak of the special points which led, in the twelfth 
century, to the actual external separation between 
the Roman and Byzantine communions. The true 
dhTerences between the East and the West existed 
long before their formal disruption, and would exist, in 



1 See Lectures IX. X. XI. XII. 
c 4 



2 4 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I 



all probability, long after any formal reunion. The 
disruption itself was rather a consequence than a cause 
of their estrangement. The theological pretexts, such 
as the doctrine of the Double Procession, the usage 
of leavened and unleavened bread, the excom- 
munication of Photius, and the failure of the last 
attempt at reconciliation in the Council of Florence, 
were themselves aggravated by more general griev- 
ances. 1 The jealousy of the two capitals of Rome 
and Constantinople; the rival claims of the Eastern 
and Western crusaders ; the outrage of the Fourth 
Crusade; the antagonism of Russia in earlier times 
to Poland, in later times to France, have all con- 
tributed to the same result. But the internal differ- 
ences lie deeper than any of these external manifesta- 
tions, whether theological or political. 
Specula- The distinction which has been most frequently 

dency of remarked is that of the speculative tendency of the 
Theology Oriental, an( i the practical tendency of the Western 
Church. This distinction is deep-seated in the con- 
trast long ago described by Aristotle between the 
savage energy and freedom of Europe, and the intel- 
lectual repose and apathy of Asia. 2 It naturally finds 
its point and expression in the theology of the two 
Churches. Whilst the Western prides itself on the 
title of the " Catholic," the Eastern claims the title of 
" Orthodox." 3 " The East," says Dean Milman, " en- 



1 This is sufficiently represented in all the common ecclesias- 
tical histories. For the enumeration of dates and events see the 
tabular statement at the end of this volume. 

2 Arist. Pol. vii. 7. 

3 The Eastern Church has a special celebration of "ortho- 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



acted creeds, the West discipline." The first decree of 
an Eastern Council was to determine the relations of 
the Godhead. The first decree of the Pope of Rome 
was to interdict the marriage of the clergy. All the 
first founders of theology were Easterns. Till the time 
of Augustine, no eminent divine had arisen in the 
West ; till the time of Gregory the Great, none had 
filled the papal chair. The doctrine of Athanasius 
was received, not originated, by Rome. The great 
Italian Council of Ariminum lapsed into Arianism by 
an oversight. The Latin language was inadequate 
to express the minute shades of meaning for which 
the Greek is admirably fitted. Of the two creeds pecu- 
liar to the Latin Church, the earlier, that called " the 
Apostles','' is characterised by its simplicity and its 
freedom from dogmatic assertions; the later, that 
called the Athanasian, as its name confesses, is an 
endeavour to imitate the Greek theology, and by the 
evident strain of its sentences reveals the ineffectual 
labour of the Latin phrases, " persona " and " sub- 
stantia," to represent the correlative but hardly cor- 
responding words by which the Greeks, with a natu- 
ral facility, expressed u the hypostatic union." And 
still more, when we touch the period at which 
the divergence between the two Empires threw 

doxy." On " Orthodox Sunday," at the beginning of Lent, the 
anathemas against heresy take the place of the curses on crimes 
and sins which mark the more practical services of our Ash- 
Wednesday. For example : " To Jacobus Zanzalus the Armenian, 
Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria, to Severus the Impious, to Paul 
.and Pyrrhus of the same mind with Sergius the disciple of Lycope- 
trus — Anathema, anathema, anathema." And on the other hand, 
" For the orthodox Greek Emperors — Everlasting remembrance, 
everlasting remembrance, everlasting remembrance." Neale, ii. 874. 



z6 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



the two Churches farther apart, the tide of 
Grecian and Egyptian controversy hardly arrived 
at the shores of Italy, now high and dry above 
their reach. 

" Latin Christianity," says Dean Milman, "con- 
templated with almost equal indifference, Nes- 
torianism and all its prolific race, Eutychianism, 
- Monophysitism, Monothelitism. While in this contest 
the two great patriarchates of the East, Constanti- 
nople and Alexandria, brought to issue, or strove to 
bring to issue, their rival claims to ascendency ; while 
council after council promulgated, reversed, re- 
enacted their conflicting decrees ; while separate and 
hostile communities were formed in every region of 
the East, and the fear of persecuted Nestorianism, 
stronger than religious zeal, penetrated for refuge 
remote countries, into which Christianity had not 
yet found its way : in the West there was no Nesto- 
rian or Eutychian sect." 1 

Probably no Latin Christian has ever felt himself 
agitated even in the least degree by any one of the 
seventy opinions on the union of the two natures 
which are said to perplex the Church of Abyssinia. 
Probably the last and only question of this kind on 
which the Latin Church has spontaneously entered, 
is that of the Double Procession of the Spirit. 2 
The very word " theology " (flsoXoy/a) arose from 
the peculiar questions agitated in the East. The 
Athanasian controversy of Constantinople and Alex- 
andria is, strictly speaking, theological ; unlike the. 

1 Latin Christianity, i. 137. 

2 See Note at the end of the Lecture. 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Church. 



27 



Pelagian or the Lutheran controversies, it relates not 
to man, but to God. 

This fundamental contrast naturally widened into 
other cognate differences. The Western theology is Ehetoricai 
essentially logical in form, and based on law. The to logical? 
Eastern is rhetorical in form and based on philo- 
sophy. The Latin divine succeeded to the Roman 
advocate. The Oriental divine succeeded to the 
Grecian sophist. 1 Out of the logical and legal ele- phiiosophi- 
ments in the West have grown up all that is most posed to" 
peculiar in the scholastic theology of the middle legal * 
ages, the Calvinistic theology of the Reformation. 
To one or both of these causes of difference may be 
reduced many of the divergences which the theological 
student will trace in regard to dogmatic statements, 
or to interpretations of Scripture, between Tertullian 
and Origen, between Prosper and Cassian, between 
Augustine and Chrysostom, between Thomas Aquinas 
and John Damascenus. 

The abstract doctrines of the Godhead in the 
Alexandrian creed took the place, in the minds of 
theological students, which, in the schools of philo- 
sophy, had been occupied by the abstract ideas of the 
Platonic system. The subtleties of Roman law as 
applied to the relations of God and man, which appear 
faintly in Augustine, more distinctly in Aquinas, 
more decisively still in Calvin and Luther, and, 
though from a somewhat larger point of view, in 
Grotius, are almost unknown to the East. " Forensic 

1 Professor Mayne, on Ancient Law, c. ix. : comp. Hampden's 
Barapton Lectures, 25. I have also to acknowledge my obliga- 
tions to the learning of the Rev. F. C. Cook. 



28 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



justification,'^ "merit," "demerit," "satisfaction," 
"imputed righteousness," "decrees," represent ideas 
which in the Eastern theology have no predominant 
influence, hardly any words to represent them. The 
few exceptions that occur may be traced directly to 
accidental gusts of Western influence. 1 

Hence arises the apparent contradiction, that, 
whenever the Eastern theologians enter on topics 
which touch not the abstract questions of the Divine 
essence, but the human questions of grace and predes- 
tination, there is a more directly moral and practical 
tone than often in corresponding treatises of the Pro- 
testant West. Chrysostom's transcendent genius and 
goodness would doubtless have lifted him above the 
trammels of any local influence ; but the admiration 
felt in the East for his thoroughly practical homilies, 
which in the West have often incurred the suspicion 
of Pelagianism, is a proof of the general tendency of 
the Church which he so powerfully represents. 

A single instance illustrates the Eastern tendency 
to a high theological view of the doctrine of the 
Trinity, combined with an absence of any pre- 
cision of statement in regard to mediation or 
redemption. In the Western liturgies direct ad- 
dresses to Christ are exceptions. In the East they 

1 A curious exception occurs in the catechism of the Russian 
Church, drawn up by the present Metropolitan of Moscow, where 
the beatitude "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 
righteousness," is interpreted of " imputed righteousness." (Doc- 
trine of the Russian Church, p. 112, translated by the Rev. W. 
Blackmore.) But I am assured by the learned translator that this 
is an unaccountable and almost solitary instance of this mode of 
interpretation in the East. Another specimen of this exceptional 
theology is in the account of Peter's deathbed. See Lecture XII. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



29 



are the rule. In the West, even in Unitarian litur- 
gies, it is deemed almost essential that every prayer 
should be closed "through Jesus Christ." In the 
East, such a close is rarely, if ever, found. One 
vestige of this Oriental practice is retained by the 
English Prayer-book in the collect attributed to S. 
Chrysostom. 

2. The contrast between the speculative tendency The specu- 
of the Eastern Church and the practical life of the dencyof" 
Western appears, not only in the theological, but in monastic 
the ecclesiastical, and especially in the monastic, llfe ' 
system of Oriental Christendom. 

No doubt monasticism was embraced by the Roman 
Church, even as early as the fifth century, with an 
energy which seemed to reproduce in a Christian form 
the dying genius of stoical philosophy Still the East 
holds the chief place in the monastic world. The 
words which describe the state are not Latin but 
Greek or Syriac — Hermit, monk, anchoret, monastery, 
coenobite, ascetic, abbot, abbey. It was not in the 
Apennines or on the Alps, but in the stony arms 
with which the Libyan and Arabian deserts enclose 
the valley of the Nile that the first monasteries were 
founded. Anthony the Coptic hermit, from his retreat 
by the Red Sea, is the spiritual father of that vast 
community which has now overrun the world. His 
disciple, Athanasius, was its first sponsor in the 
West. And not only was monasticism born in the 
Eastern Church; it has also thriven there with an 
unrivalled intensity. Indeed the earliest source of 
monastic life is removed even further than the 
Thebaid deserts, in the Manichean repugnance of the 



30 The Characteristics of Lect. L 

distant East towards the material world, as it is ex- 
hibited under its simplest form in the Indian Yogi or 
the Mussulman Fakir. It is this Oriental seclu- 
sion which, whether from character, or climate, 
or contagion, has to the Christian world been far 
more forcibly represented in the Oriental than in the 
Latin Church. The solitary and contemplative de- 
votion of the Eastern monks, whether in Egypt or 
Greece, though broken by the manual labour necessary 
for their subsistence, has been very slightly modified 
either by literary or agricultural activity. There 
have, indeed, been occasional examples of splendid 
benevolence in Oriental monachism. The Egyptian 
monk, Telemachus, by the sacrifice of himself, extin- 
guished the gladiatorial games at Rome. Russian her- 
mits opposed the securest bulwark against the savage 
despotism of Ivan. 1 But these are isolated instances. 
As a general rule, there has arisen in the East no 
society like the Benedictines, held in honour wherever 
literature or civilisation has spread; no charitable 
orders, like the Sisters of Mercy, which carry light 
and peace into the darkest haunts of suffering 
humanity. Active life is, on the strict Eastern 
theory, an abuse of the system. 

Nor is it only in the monastic life that the severity 
of Eastern asceticism excels that of the West. Whilst 
the fasts of the Latin Church are mostly confined to 
Lent, liable, increasingly liable, to wide dipensa- 
tions, exercised for the most part by abstinence, not 
from all food, but only from particular kinds of food, 
the fasts of the Eastern Church, especially of its 

1 See Lecture X. Compare Montalembert's Monks of the 
West, i. 38— -133. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



3« 



most remarkable branch, the Coptic, extend through 
large periods of the year, are regarded as all 
but indispensable — and, for the time, repudiate all 
sustenance, though with strange inconsistency they 
admit of drinking, even to the grossest intoxication. 
And, finally, the wildest individual excesses of a Bruno 
or a Dunstan seem poor beside the authorised, national, 
we may almost say imperial, adoration of the Pillar- 
saints of the East. Amidst all the controversies of 
the fifth century, on one religious subject the con- 
flicting East maintained its unity, in the reverence of 
the Hermit on the Pillar. The West has never had 
a Simeon Stylites. 

3. Another important difference between the two The East- 

. ern Church 

Churches was one which, though m substance the stationary, 
same, may be expressed in various forms. The 
Eastern Church was, like the East, stationary and 
immutable; the Western, like the West, progressive 
and flexible. This distinction is the more remark- 
able, because, at certain periods of their course, 
there can be no doubt that the civilisation of the 
Eastern Church was far higher than that of the 
Western. No one can read the account of the cap- 
ture of Constantinople by the Crusaders of the 
thirteenth century, without perceiving that it is the 
occupation of a refined and civilised capital by a 
horde of comparative barbarians. The arrival of the 
Greek scholars in Europe in the fifteenth century was 
the signal for the most progressive step that Western 
theology has ever made. And in earlier ages, whilst 
it might still be thought that Rome, not Constanti- 
nople, was the natural refuge of the arts of the 
ancient classical world, the literature of the Church 



3 2 



The Characteristics of Lect. L 



was almost entirely confined to the Byzantine hemi- 
sphere. "Whilst Constantinople was ringing with the 
fame of preachers, of whom Chrysostom was the 
chief but not the only example, the Roman bishops 
and clergy, till the time of Leo the Great, never pub- 
licly addressed their flocks from the pulpit. But, 
notwithstanding this occasional superiority, the 
Oriental Church, as a whole, almost from the time 
that it assumed a distinct existence, has given 
tokens of that singular immobility which is in great 
part to be traced to its Eastern origin — its origin in 
those strange regions which still retain, not only the 
climate and vegetation, but the manners, the dress, 
the speech of the days of the Patriarchs and the 
Pharaohs. Its peculiar corruptions have been such 
as are consequent, not on development, but on stag- 
nation; its peculiar excellencies have been such as 
belong to the simplicity of barbarism, not to the free- 
dom of civilisation. 

The straws of custom show which way the spirit 
of an institution blows. The primitive posture of 
standing in prayer still retains its ground in the 
East. Organs and musical instruments have never 
penetrated into its worship. Jewish ordinances still 
keep their hold on Abyssinia. Even the schism 1 which 
convulsed the Russian Church nearly at the same time 
that Latin Christendom was rent by the German Re- 
formation, was not a forward but a retrograde move- 
ment — a protest, not against abuses, but against 
innovation. The calendars of the Churches show 
the eagerness with which, whilst the one, at least till 
1 See Lectures XI. and XII. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



33 



a recent period, placed herself at the head of European 
civilisation, the other still studiously lags behind 
it. The "new style," which the world owes to the 
enlightened activity of Pope Gregory XIII. , after 
having with difficulty overcome the Protestant scru- 
ples of Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland, and 
last of all (with shame be it said) of England and 
Sweden, has never been able to penetrate into the 
wide dominions of the old Byzantine and the modern 
Russian Empires, which still hold to the Greek 
Calendar, eleven days behind the rest of the civilised 
world. * 

These contrasts might be indefinitely multiplied, 
sometimes to the advantage of one Church, sometimes 
to the advantage of the other. The case of the 
Sacraments and their accompaniments will suffice as 
an example. 

The Latin doctrine on this subject is by Pro- TheSacra- 
testants so frequently regarded as the highest pitch meuts * 
of superstition — by Roman Catholics as the highest 
pitch of reverence of which the subject is capable — 
that it may be instructive to both to see the con- 
trast between the freedom and reasonableness of the 
sacramental doctrine as held by the highest Roman 
doctors, compared with the stiff, the magical, the 
antiquarian character of the same doctrine as re- 
presented in the East. We are accustomed to 
place the essence of superstition in a devotion to 
the outward forms and elements as distinct from 
the inward spirit which they represent, convey, 
or express. Let us, for a moment, see which has in 
this respect most tenaciously clung to the form, 

VOL. I.- d 



34 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



which to the spirit, of the two great ordinances of 
Christian worship, 
immersion There can be no question that the original form 
tism. ap " °f haptism — the very meaning of the word — was 
complete immersion in the deep baptismal waters; 
and that, for at least four centuries, any other form 
was either unknown, or regarded as an exceptional, 
almost a monstrous case. To this form the Eastern 
Church still rigidly adheres ; and the most illustrious 
and venerable portion of it, that of the Byzantine 
Empire, absolutely repudiates and ignores any other 
mode of administration as essentially invalid. The 
Latin Church, on the other hand, doubtless in defer- 
ence to the requirements of a northern climate, to the 
change of manners, to the convenience of custom, 
has wholly altered the mode, preferring, as it would 
fairly say, mercy to sacrifice ; and (with the two ex- 
ceptions of the cathedral of Milan, and the sect of 
the Baptists) a few drops of water are now the 
Western substitute for the threefold plunge into 
the rushing rivers, or the wide baptisteries of the 
East. 

Confirma- And when we descend from the administration 
tlon * itself of the sacramental elements to their con- 
comitant circumstances, still the same contrast ap- 
pears. In the first age of the church it was custo- 
mary for the apostles to lay their hands on the heads 
of the newly baptized converts, that they might receive 
" the gifts of the Spirit." The " gifts " vanished, but 
the custom of laying on of hands remained. It re- 
mained and was continued, and so in the Greek Church 
is still continued, at the baptism of children as of 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



35 



adults. Confirmation is, with them, simultaneous 
with the act of the baptismal immersion. But the 
Latin Church, whilst it adopted or retained the prac- 
tice of admitting infants to baptism, soon set itself to 
remedy the obvious defect arising from their uncon- 
scious age, by separating and postponing, and giving 
a new life and meaning to the rite of confirmation. 
The two ceremonies, which in the Eastern Church 
are indissolubly confounded, are now, throughout 
Western Christendom, by a salutary innovation, each 
made to minister to the edification of the individual, 
and completion of the whole baptismal ordinance. 

In like manner the East retained, and still re- Extreme 
tains, the apostolical practice mentioned by S. 
James — for the sick to call in the elders of the 
church, to anoint him with oil, and pray over him, 
that he may recover. " The elders," that is, a body 
of priests (for they still make a point of the plural 
number), are called in at moments of dangerous ill- 
ness, and the prayer is offered. But the Latin 
Church, seeing that the special object for which the 
ceremony was first instituted, the recovery of the 
sick, had long ceased to be effected, determined to 
change its form, that it still might be preserved as an 
instructive symbol. And thus the " anointing with 
oil " of the first centur}^, and of the Oriental Church, 
has become with the Latins the last, the extreme 
unction, of the dying man, — a ceremony, doubtless, to 
our notions, useless, perhaps superstitious, but on the 
whole more reasonable than the mere perpetuation 
of a shadow when the substance is departed. 

Yet once again it became a practice in the Church, infant 

T> 2 



36 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



Commu- early — we know not how early — for infants to com- 
municate in the Lord's supper. A literal application 
to the Eucharist of the text respecting the bread of 
life, in the sixth chapter of S. John, naturally followed 
on a literal application to baptism of the text respecting 
the second birth in the third chapter; and the actual 
participation in the elements of both sacraments 
came to be regarded as equally necessary for the 
salvation of every human being. Here again the 
peculiar genius of each of the two Churches displayed 
itself. The Oriental Churches, in conformity with 
ancient usage, still administer the Eucharist to 
infants. In the Coptic Church it may even happen 
that an infant is the only recipient. The Latin 
Church, on the other hand, in deference to modern 
feeling, has not only abandoned but actually for- 
bidden a practice which, as far as antiquity is con- 
cerned, might insist on unconditional retention. 
Absence 4. There is yet another more general subject on 
giousart. which the widest difference, involving the same 
principle, exists between the two communions, 
namely, the whole relation of art to religious 
worship. Let any one enter an Oriental church, 
and he will at once be struck by the contrast 
which the architecture, the paintings, the very 
aspect of the ceremonial, present to the churches of 
the West. Often, indeed, this may arise from the 
poverty or oppression under which most Christian 
communities labour whose lot has been cast in the 
Ottoman Empire ; but often the altars may blaze 
with gold — the dresses of the priests stiffen with the 
richest silks of Brousa — yet the contrast remains. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



37 



The difference lies in the fact that Art, as such, 
has no place in the worship or in the edifice. 
There is no aiming at effect, no dim religious light, 
no beauty of form or colour, beyond what is pro - 
duced by the mere display of gorgeous and barbaric 
pomp. Yet it would be a great mistake to infer 
from this absence of art — indeed no one who has 
ever seen it could infer — that this involves a more 
decided absence of form and of ceremonial. The 
mystical gestures, the awe which surrounds the 
sacerdotal functions, the long repetitions, the seve- 
rance of the sound from the sense, of the mind from 
the act, both in priest and people, are not less, but 
more, remarkable than in the churches of the West. 
The traveller who finds himself in the interior of the 
old cathedral of Malta, after having been accustomed 
for a few weeks or months to the ritual of the con- 
vents and churches of the Levant, experiences almost 
the same emotion as when he passes again from the 
services of the Eoman Catholic to those of the Re- 
formed Churches. This union of barbaric rudeness 
and elaborate ceremonialism is, however, no contra- 
diction ; it is an exemplification of an important law 
in the human mind. There is no more curious 
chapter in the history of the relation of the two 
Churches than that of the Iconoclastic controversy of 
the ninth century. It is true that the immediate 
effects of this controversy were transient — the sudden 
ebullition, not of a national or popular feeling, but 
almost, as it would seem, of a Puritan, or even a 
Mahometan, fanaticism in the breast of a single Em- 
peror — u a mere negative doctrine," " which robbed 

D 3 



38 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



the senses of their habitual and cherished objects 
of devotion without awakening an inner life of 
piety." The onslaught on the image-worship of the 
Church passed away almost as rapidly as it had 
begun ; and the fanaticism which the Emperor Leo 
had provoked, the Empress Irene, through the second 
Council of Nicsea, effectually proscribed. But in 
the Eastern Church the spirit of Leo has so far re- 
vived that, although pictures are still retained and 
adored with even more veneration than the cor- 
responding objects of devotion in the West, statues 
are rigidly excluded ; and the same Greek monk, who 
would ridicule the figures, or even bas-reliefs, of a 
Roman Catholic Church, will fling his incense and 
perform his genuflexions with the most undoubting 
faith before the same saint as seen in the paintings 
of his own convent chapel. 

The result is well given by Dean Milman : — 
" The ruder the art the more intense the super- 
stition. The perfection of the fine arts tends rather 
to diminish than to promote such superstition. Not 
merely does the cultivation of mind required for their 
higher execution, as well as the admiration of them, 
imply an advanced state, but the idealism, which is 
their crowning excellence, in some degree unrealises 
them, and creates a different and more exalted feeling. 
There is more direct idolatry paid to the rough and 
illshapen image, or the flat unrelieved and staring 
picture — the former actually clothed in gaudy and 
tinsel ornaments, the latter with the crown of gold 
leaf on the head, and real or artificial flowers in the 
hand — than to the noblest ideal statue, or the Holy 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



39 



Family with all the magic of light and shade. They 
are not the fine paintings which work miracles, but 
the coarse and smoke-darkened boards, on which the 
dim outline of form is hardly to be traced. Thus it 
may be said that it was the superstition which re- 
quired the images, rather than the images which 
formed the superstition. The Christian mind would 
have found some other fetiche to which it would 
have attributed miraculous powers. Relics would 
have been more fervently worshipped, and endowed 
with more transcendent powers, without the adven- 
titious good, the familiarising the mind with the 
historic truths of Scripture, or even the legends of 
Christian martyrs, which at least allayed the evil of 
the actual idolatry. Iconoclasm left the worship of 
relics, and other dubious memorials of the saints, in 
all their vigour, while it struck at that which, after 
all, was a higher kind of idolatry. It aspired not 
to elevate the general mind above superstition, but 
proscribed only one, and that not the most debasing 
form." 1 

5. Another difference presents itself, arising partly Eastern 
from the same causes, in the mode of dealing which not mis', 
the Eastern Church adopts towards independent or slonar ^ 
hostile forms of religion. 

In regard to missions, the inaction of the Eastern 
Churches is well known. Whilst the Latin Church 
has sent out missionaries for the conversion of Eng- 
land and Germany in the middle ages, of South Ame- 
rica, of India, and of China, down to our own time ; 
whilst many Protestants pour the whole of their reli- 

1 Latin Christianity, ii. 152 — 153. 
d 4 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



gious energy exclusively into missionary enterprise, 
the Eastern Churches, as a general rule, have re- 
mained content with the maintenance of their own 
faith. The preaching of Ulfilas to the Goths, the 
Nestorian missions in Asia, and, in modern times, of 
Russia in Siberia and the Aleutian Islands, are but 
striking exceptions. The conversion of the Russian 
nation was effected, not by the preaching of the 
Byzantine clergy, but by the marriage of a Byzan- 
tine princess. In the midst of the Mahometan East 
the Greek populations remain like islands in the 
barren sea, and the Bedouin tribes have wandered for 
twelve centuries round the Greek convent of Mount 
Sinai probably without one instance of conversion to 
the creed of men whom they yet acknowledge with 
almost religious veneration as beings from a higher 
world. 

Yet, if Eastern Christians have abdicated the 
glory of missionaries, they are exempt from the curse 
of proselytism ; and they have (with some mournful 1 
examples to the contrary) been free from the still 
darker curse of persecution. A respectful reverence 
for every manifestation of religious feeling has with- 
held them from violent attacks on the rights of 
conscience, and led them to extend a kindly patro- 
nage to forms of faith most removed from their 
own. The gentle spirit of the Greek Fathers has 
granted to the heroes and sages of heathen anti- 
quity a place in the Divine favour, which was 

1 The difficulty of arriving at the truth of the alleged Russian 
persecution of the Roman Catholics in Poland renders any posi- 
tive statement on this subject next to impossible. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 41 



long denied in the West. Along the porticoes of 
Eastern churches, both in Greece and Kussia, are 
to be seen portrayed on the walls the figures of 
Homer, Thucydides, Pythagoras, and Plato, as pio- 
neers preparing the way for Christianity. In the 
vast painting of the Last Judgment, which covers 
the west end of the chief cathedral of Moscow, Para- 
dise is represented as divided and subdivided into 
many departments or chambers, thus keeping before 
the minds, even of the humblest, the great doc- 
trine of the Gospel — which has often been tacitly 
dropped out of Western religion — " In my Father's 
house are many mansions." No Inquisition, no 
S. Bartholomew's massacre, no Titus Oates, has 
darkened the history of any of the nobler portions of 
Eastern Christendom. In Armenia, Henry Martyn's 
funeral at Tokat is said to have received all the 
honours of an Armenian archbishop. In Kussia, 
where the power and the will to persecute exist 
more strongly, though proselytism is forbidden, yet 
the worship, not only of their own dissenters, but 
of Latins and Protestants, is protected as sacred. 
In the fair of Nijni-Novgorod, on the confluence of 
the Yolga and the Oka, the Mahometan mosque and 
the Armenian church stand side by side with the 
orthodox cathedral. 

6. In like manner the theology of the East has Eastern 
undergone no systematising process. Its doctrines not sys- 

;1 . . -1 . if* 1 11 tematised. 

remain m the same rigid yet undefined state as 
that in which they were left by Constantine 
and Justinian. The resistance to the insertion 
of the words "filioque," was the natural protest 



42 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



of the unchanging Church of the early Councils 
against the growth, whether by development or 
by corruption, of the West. Even in points 
where the Protestant Churches have gone back, 
as they believe, to a yet earlier simplicity of 
faith, the Eastern Church still presents her doc- 
trines in a form far less repugnant to such a sim- 
plicity than is the case with the corresponding 
statements in the Latin Church. Prayers for the 
dead exist, but no elaborate hierarchical system has 
been built upon their performance. A general ex- 
pectation prevails that by some unknown process 
the souls of the sinful will be purified before they 
pass into the Divine presence; but this has never 
been consolidated into a doctrine of purgatory. 
The Mother of our Lord is regarded with a venera- 
tion which, in elevation of sentiment, equals any of 
the devotions addressed to her in the West; but 
it is too abstract and indefinite to allot to her in 
the scheme of salvation, or the protection of the 
Church, the powerful place which is so precisely 
ascribed to her by Latin divines. The reverence 
for her sanctity has never crystallised into the 
modern dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Her 
death, encompassed as it is by legend, is yet " the 
sleep" (xoi[JLri(ri$) of the Virgin, not her "assump- 
tion." The boundary between the rhetorical, poetical 
addresses to the saints, in the Eastern worship, 
and the actual invocation of their aid, has never 
been laid down with precision. " Transubstantia- 
tion," if used at all as a theological term, is merely 
one amongst many to express the reverential awe 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



43 



with which the Eucharist is approached. It is not 
in the exact repetition of the words of the original 
institution (as in the Churches of Rome, of Luther, 
and of England), but in the more general and more 
directly spiritual form of the invocation of the 
Spirit, that the Eastern Church places the moment 
of the consecration of the elements. 

7. A similar turn is given to the institution of the The East- 
Eastern clergy, by the absence of the organising, arctynJt 
centralising tendency which prevailed in the West. or s anised - 
It is not that their spirit is less hierarchical than 
that of the Latin clergy. In some respects it is 
more so, in proportion as it more nearly resembles 
the Jewish type, of which the extreme likeness, as 
we have seen, is preserved in Abyssinia. The Greek 
priest concealed within the veil of the sanctuary 
is far more entirely shut out from the congregation 
than the Latin priest standing before the altar, in 
the presence of the assembled multitude, who can 
at least follow with their eyes his every gesture. 
For centuries in the Church of Alexandria, and still 
in the Church of Armenia 1 , the dead hand of the 
first bishop has been employed as the instrument of 
consecration in each succeeding generation. This 
is a more carnal and literal representation of a 
priestly succession than is to be found in any Western 
ordinations. But the moment we enter into prac- 
tical life, and even into the groundwork of the 
theory of the two Churches, the powers and pre- 
tensions of the Greek hierarchy shrink into nothing 
before those of the Latins. 



1 See p. 12. 



44 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



The authorised descriptions of the office at once 
bespeak a marked difference. The lofty terms in- 
troduced into the Latin Church in the thirteenth 
century, and still retained in our own, — " Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost .... whose sins ye retain 
they are retained," — fill the place which in the 
Eastern Church is occupied by a simple prayer 
for the Divine blessing. The priestly expression 
of absolution, which in the Western Church was 
in the same thirteenth century changed into the 
positive form " I absolve thee," in the Eastern 
Church is still as it always was, " May the Lord 
absolve thee." The independent position conferred 
on the Western clergy by tithes is, at least in one 
portion 1 of the Eastern Church, almost unknown. 
However sacred the office whilst it is held, and 
however difficult and discreditable it may be to 
lay it aside, yet it is not, as in the Latin Church, 
indelible. An Eastern priest can divest himself 
of his orders and become a layman, Although 
confession to a priest is deemed necessary for all, 
yet it never has descended into those details of 
casuistry which have in the Latin Church made 
it so formidable an engine both for good and evil. 
The scandals, the influence, the terrors, of the 
confessional are alike unknown in the East, 
in depend- The laity, on the other hand, have a part assigned 
the laity, to them in the Eastern Church, which even in the 
Protestant churches of the West has been with 
difficulty recognised. The monastic orders, although 
1 See Lecture JX. 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Church. 



45 



including many clergy, are yet in the East, to a 
great extent, as they are never in the West, but 
as they were entirely in early times, lay and 
not clerical institutions. The independent manly 
assertion of religion which pervades the Mahometan 
world 1 has not been lost in the Christian East. One 
special rite — that of the sacred unction of Con- 
firmation, which, as we have seen, is conferred 
simultaneously with baptism, has been explained 
with a force and eloquence which, on such a subject, 
rings with the tone of a Tyndale or a Luther, as 
symbolising the royal priesthood of every Christian. 
" It destroys the wall of separation that Rome has 
raised between the ecclesiastic and the layman, for 
we are all priests of the Most High — priests though 
not pastors 2 — in different degrees." This explana- 
tion of the ceremony may be doubtful ; but that it 
should be put forth at all in connection with one of 
the most peculiar and significant of the Oriental eccle- 
siastical rites, is an indication of their general spirit. 

In the study of the Scriptures, and the use of study of 
the liturgy in the vernacular languages of the and use of 
several nations that have adopted Eastern Chris- cuiar 6 ™" 
tianity, we have other traces, though less direct, tongue - 
of the same tendency. It is true that in most 
Oriental Churches these languages have, by the lapse 
of years, become antiquated, or even dead, in the 
mouths of those who use them; and the clergy 
have been too timid or too apathetic to meet the 

1 See Lecture VIII. 

2 Quelque Mots, par un Chretien Orthodoxe, (1853) p. 53. 



4 6 



The Characteristics of 



Lect. I. 



changing exigencies of time. But the principle is 
maintained, that the language 1 of each separate 
nation, not a sacred language peculiar to the clergy, 
is the proper vehicle for worship and religious 
life. And the study of the Bible, though neglected 
from the barbarism of the present state of Oriental 
Christendom, is nowhere discouraged. The Arabic 
translation of the Scriptures, even in the Coptic 
Church, is listened to with the utmost attention, 
and is taught in Coptic schools. In Russia, the 
efforts of the Bible Society were welcomed by 
Alexander I. ; and in Greece (until the breaking 
out of the War of Independence) by the collective 
hierarchy of Constantinople. 

" God be praised," was the expression of a devout 
Russian layman, in speaking of the scandals occasioned 
by the ignorance of the Russian priesthood; "the 
Eastern Church has never ruled that religious light 
and instruction are confined to the clergy. It is 
still in our own power to redeem the future." 

This aspect of the institution of the Oriental 
hierarchy is still further brought out by two general 
points of contrast with the position of the clergy 
of the West. 

Absence of The centralisation of the West, as displayed in 
a Papacy. ^ p a p acv? i s unknown to the East. This, partly 
the result of the general tendencies just mentioned, 
has been encouraged by the difference of historical 
circumstances m the relations of the heads of the 
respective Churches. What Imperial Rome lost by 
the transfer of the seat of government to the East, 

1 See Lecture IX. 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Church. 



47 



the Byzantine Empire gained. What Papal Rome 
gained by the removal of a rival power and splen- 
dour, that the Patriarch of Constantinople lost. As 
the Pope rilled the place of the absent Emperors at 
Rome, inheriting their power, their prestige, the 
titles which they had themselves derived from the 
days of their paganism, so the Emperors controlled, 
guided, personified, the Church at Constantinople. 
No one can read Eusebius's description of the Council 
of Nicaea without feeling that, amongst all who 
were then assembled in the hall, none occupied the 
same pre-eminence as the Emperor Constantine. 
Justinian and Theodora, great as they were in legis- 
lating for the empire, exercised a hardly less im- 
portant influence in their determination, not only 
of the discipline but of the doctrines of the Church ; 
and what Constantine and Justinian began has been 
continued by the great potentates who have ever 
since swayed the destinies of the Oriental hierarchy. 
In Constantinople itself the Sultan still exercises 
the right which he inherited from the last of the 
Csesars ; and the appointment and deposition of the 
patriarchs still places in his hands the government 
of the Byzantine Church — a power, no doubt, 
more scandalous and more pernicious in the hands 
of the Mussulman than it was in the hands of the 
Christian despot, but not more decided and absolute. 
And how high a place is occupied by the Emperor 
of Russia 1 will be seen in treating of the Russian 
Church especially. 

Along with this difference in the position of the Married 

Clergy. 

1 See Lecture X. 



4 8 



The Characteristics of Lect. I. 



Papacy and the Patriarchate, was another which 
affected the whole position of the hierarchy itself. 
The Eastern Church at its outset basked in the 
sunshine of Imperial favour — a regular institu- 
tion, forming part of the framework of civilised so-, 
ciety, secure from the convulsion which shook the 
rest of the world in the invasion of the northern 
barbarians. The Latin Church, entering on her 
career, amidst the crash of a falling Empire, and 
with successive hordes of wild barbarians to con- 
trol, instruct, and guide, was in a far more trying 
position. Amongst the various steps for the organi- 
sation of her clergy in this struggle the chief was 
the enforcement of celibacy. This principle has 
not only never been adopted in the East, but has 
been repudiated even more positively than by Pro- 
testants. However fervent the Oriental Church 
may have been at all times in its assertion of the 
ascetic and monastic system, yet for the clerical 
body marriage is not only permitted and frequent, 
but compulsory, and all but universal. It is a 
startling sight to the traveller, after long wanderings 
in the south of Europe, to find himself, amongst 
the mountains of Greece or Asia Minor, once more 
under the roof of a married pastor, and see the 
table of the parish priest furnished, as it might be in 
Protestant England or Switzerland, by the hands 
of an acknowledged wife. The bishops, indeed, being 
selected from the monasteries, are single. But the 
parochial clergy, — that is, the whole body of the 
clergy as such, — though they cannot marry after 
their ordination, must always be married before they 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Church. 



49 



enter on their office. 1 In one instance, that of the 
Chaldsean or Nestorian Christians, the patriarch is 
allowed to marry. 

IV. These distinctions, which might be pursued to Advan- 
any extent, and- illustrated in every particular, will Sytf* 
suffice to show that the differences between the two .chS* 6 ™ 
divisions of Christendom, although in some points 
superficial, are yet in one sense more radical than 
those which separate the other branches of the Chris- 
tian Church from each other. 

It is this inward moral divergence, more than 
any outward theological distinction or any local dis- 
tance, which occasions our ignorance and our indif- 
ference to the Eastern Church. But it is from this 
very divergence that accrue the chief advantages of 
the study of the Eastern Church. 

1. The ecclesiastical history of the West is full of 
our own passions, our own preconceived ideas and 
prejudices. We run round and round in the ruts of 
our own controversies; every object that we see has 
been long familiar to us; every step that we take 
is in footmarks of our own making. Every name is 
coloured with some theological sympathy or anti- 
pathy ; every sect and church is our personal 
enemy or ally. 

This living interest the history of the Eastern Isolation of 
Church can never acquire. Yet it is refreshing to church 
turn for a time to a region where the incidents and em^ontTO- 

versy. 

1 This has been so long an established custom, that, like the 
celibacy of the Latin clergy, though not part of the doctrine, it is 
part of the discipline of the Church. An exception, however, has 
occurred in the Russian Church within the past year. A theolo- 
gical professor has been ordained, although unmarried. 
VOL. I. E 



The Lessons of Lect. I. 



the characters awaken no feelings except those which 
are purely historical; where the principles which 
agitate the Church at large can be traced without the 
disturbing force of personal and national animosities. 
The names of Hildebrand, Loyola, Luther, Calvin, 
carry with them each a tempest of its own, which 
scatters commotion and excitement around its whole 
circumference. But no one will be able to work him- 
self into a frenzy in defending even Chrysostom or 
Basil ; no one will lose his temper or his charity in 
deciding the claims of the false or the true Deme- 
trius, or in defending the cause of Stephen Yavor- 
ski of Riazan against Theophanes Procopovitch of 
Pshkoff. 

And what is true of individual events or per- 
sons, is true of the whole institution. It is not 
only unknown and therefore fresh to us, but it is 
compounded in such proportions, and of such mate- 
rials, as to turn the force and blunt the edge of 
the implements of controversy with which in the 
West we are always destroying one another. Many 
a keen assailant of Popery or of Protestantism 
will find himself at fault in the presence of a 
Church, which is Protestant and Catholic at once, 
sometimes in points where we least expect to find 
the respective elements of discord or concord. It 
cuts across the grain of our most cherished preju- 
dices. Our well-ordered phrases are thrown into con- 
fusion by encountering a vast communion which, in 
some respects, goes so far ahead of us, in others falls 
so far behind us. From such an experience we may 
be taught that there is a region above and beyond 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Chureh. 



5 



our own agitations. We may learn to be less positive 
in pushing theological premises to their extreme 
conclusions. We may find that there is a stubborn 
mass of fact against which the favourite argument of 
driving our adversaries into believing all or nothing is 
broken to pieces. It is useful to find that churches and 
sects are not exactly squared according to our notions 
of what our own logic or rhetoric would lead us to 
expect. The discovery of the Syrian Christians of 
S. Thomas on the shores of India was a fruitful 
source of perplexity to both sections of European 
Christendom. " Their separation from the Western 
world," says Gibbon, " had left them in ignorance of 
the improvements or corruptions of a thousand years ; 
and their conformity with the faith and practice of the 
fifth century would equally disappoint the prejudices 
of a Papist or a Protestant." Such two-edged dis- 
appointments are amongst the best lessons of ecclesi- 
astical history; and such are the disappointments 
which not only the small community on the coast of 
Malabar, but the whole Eastern Church, impresses on 
the inquirers of the West, from whatever quarter 
they come. 

2. Again, a knowledge of the existence and Its compe- 
claims of the Eastern Church keeps up the equi- the°Latin h 
poise of Christendom. The weight of authority, Chmch - 
of numbers, of antiquity, has various attractions 
for different minds. Some characters are self- 
poised and independent. Loneliness and singularity 
in the present, the hopes of a remote and ideal future, 
are to them the notes of a true Church. But there 
are many who are in danger of being thrown off 

E 2 



5 2 



The Lessons of 



Lect. I. 



tlieir balance by the magnetic power of those asso- 
ciations which appeal to the imaginative, the social, 
the devotional parts of our nature. 

The body with which we are most familiar as pro- 
ducing this effect, is the ancient and energetic com- 
munity whose seat is at Rome. In it we usually see 
the chief impersonation of high ecclesiastical preten- 
sions, of an elaborate ritual, of outward devotion, of 
wide dominion, of venerable tradition. It is close at 
hand; and, therefore, whether we attack or admire, 
it fills the whole of our view. But this effect is con- 
siderably modified by the apparition of the Eastern 
Church. Turn from the Tiber to the Bosphorus : we 
shall see that there are two kings in the field, two 
suns in the heavens. That figure which seemed so 
imposing when it was the only one which met our 
view, changes all its proportions when we see that it 
is overtopped by a vaster, loftier, darker figure behind. 
If we are bent on having dogmatical belief and con- 
servative tradition to its fullest extent, we must go 
not to the Church which calls itself Catholic, but to the 
Church which calls itself Orthodox — to the Church 
which will die but never surrender the minutest 
point which Council or Father has bequeathed to it. 
If we are to make the most of monasticism as a neces- 
sary model of Christian perfection, we ought not to stop 
short with the Grande Chartreuse, or Monte Casino, 
when we can have the seclusion of Mount Athos, or 
the exaltation of Simeon Stylites. If we are to have 
the ancient theory of sacramental forms carried 
out to its extreme limits, we must not halt half- 
way with a Church which has curtailed the waters of 



Lect. I. 



the Eastern Church. 



53 



baptism, and deferred confirmation and communion 
to years of discretion : we must take refuge in the 
ancient Eastern ritual, which still retains the threefold 
immersion, which still offers the rites of chrism and 
of the eucharist to the unconscious touch of infancy. 

Nay, beyond the Eastern Church itself, there is a 
farther East to which we must go, if wisdom is to 
be sought, not in moderation, but in extremes. The 
Greek Church is more ceremonial than the Latin, but 
the Coptic is more ceremonial than the Greek, and the 
Abyssinian is more ceremonial than the Coptic. In 
the Church of Abyssinia we shall find the best 
example of what many seek in a limited degree in 
the West, — a complete sacrifice of the spirit of Chris- 
tianity to the letter. 

Eemember, too, that if the voice of authority is 
confident at Kome, it is hardly less confident at Con- 
stantinople and at Moscow. Remember, that beyond 
the Carpathians, beyond the Hsemus, beyond the Ural 
range, there are unbroken successions of bishops, 
long calendars of holy men unknown in the West, 
who can return anathema for anathema, as well as 
blessing for blessing ; who can afford to regard even 
Augustine and Jerome, not as canonised saints, only 
as " pious Christians of blessed memory." Remember, 
that in the eyes of an orthodox Greek the Pope is 
not the representative of a faith pure and un defiled, 
but (I quote 1 their own words) as " the first Pro- 
testant," " the founder of German rationalism." The 
Eastern patriarchs speak in their solemn docu- 
ments of the Papal supremacy as " the chief heresy 

1 Quelques Mots, par un Chretien Orthodoxe, 1853, p. 40. 

e 3 



5+ 



The Lessons of 



Lect. I. 



Illustra- 
tion of the 
unity of 
Western 
Christen- 
dom. 



of the latter days, which flourishes now as its 
predecessor Arianism flourished before it in the 
earlier ages, and which, like Arianism, shall in 
like manner be cast down and vanish away." 1 To 
a devout Russian the basilica of S. Peter's seems 
bare and cold and profane; hardly deserving the 
name of church — a temple without an altar. Rome 
itself is chiefly interesting to him because it reminds 
him of Moscow 2 , but even then, as he pathetically 
adds, "it is Moscow without the Kremlin." 

The fact of such wide-spread, deeply rooted feelings 
remains in all its length and breadth to be accounted 
for in any hypothesis which we choose to frame of a 
universal Church. Eastern Christendom, so con- 
sidered, is one of the strongest bulwarks against the 
undue claims or encroachments of any Church or 
see of the West, whether at Rome, or Geneva, or 
London. 

3. Yet again, if we may make this use of the 
Greek Church for purposes of war and of defence, we 
may also make use of it for purposes of peace and 
harmony. It is often observed, with regard to the 
most general features, of manners, geography, and 
history, that the West can only be perfectly under- 
stood after having seen the East. A green field, a 
rushing stream, a mountain clothed with verdure 
from head to foot, will, I believe, always assume a new 
interest in the eyes of one who has come from the 
dry, bare, thirsty East. We trace a distinctness, a 



1 Encyclic Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848, § 5. See 
Neale, ii. 1195. 

2 Mouravieff, Questions Religieuses, p. 270. 



Lect. I, the Eastern Church. 



vividness, a family likeness in these features of 
Western Europe which, until we had seen their op- 
posites, almost escape our notice. Like to this is the 
additional understanding of Western Christendom, 
gained by a contemplation of its counterpoise in the 
Oriental Churches. However great the differences 
between the different branches of the Western 
Church, there are peculiarities in common which 
imply deeper elements of consanguinity and likeness 
than those which unite any of them to the com- 
munities of the East. The variety, the stir, the life, 
the turmoil, the " drive" as our American brethren 
would call it, is, in every Western Church, contrasted 
with the immobility, the repose, the inaction of Greece, 
of Syria, and of Kussia. It is instructive for the 
staunch adherents of the Reformation to feel that the 
Latin Church, which we have been accustomed to 
regard as our chief antagonist, has after all the same 
elements of Western life and civilisation, as those 
of which we are justly proud ; that, whatever it be as 
compared with England or Germany, it is, as com- 
pared with Egypt or Syria, enlightened, progressive, 
— in one word, Protestant. It is instructive for the 
opponents of the Reformation to see that in the 
Eastern section of the Christian Church, vast as it is, 
the whole Western Church, Latin and German, Papal 
and Lutheran, is often regarded as essentially one ; 
that the first concessions to reason and freedom, 
which involve by necessity all the subsequent stages, 
were made long before Luther, in the bosom of 
the Roman Church itself ; that the Papal see 
first led the way in schism from the parent 

E 4 



56 



The Lessons of Lect. t 



stock in liberty of private judgment ; that some of 
the most important points in which the Latin is now 
distinguished from the Greek Church, have been 
actually copied and imported from the new Churches 
of the Protestant West. To trace this family resem- 
blance between the different branches of the Occi- 
dental Church is the polemical object of an able 
treatise by a zealous member of the Church of 
Kussia 1 : to trace it in a more friendly and hopeful 
spirit is a not unworthy aim of students of the Church 
of England. 

Advan- 4. But it would be unjust to our Eastern bre- 
theEastem thren to draw from them lessons merely of con- 
Western tr&st anc ^ disparagement. There are those, no doubt, 
Church. W | 1Q i 00 k on £j ie Oriental Church merely as the dead 
trunk, from which all sap and life have departed, fit 
only to be cut down, because it cumbers the ground. 
But it is also, beyond doubt, the aged tree, beneath 
whose shade the rest of Christendom has sprung up. 
We may ask whether its roots have not struck too 
widely and too deeply in its native soil to allow of 
any other permanent form of religious life in those 
regions which does not in some degree engraft itself 
on that ancient stem. 2 We may thankfully accept 

1 Quelques Mots, par un Chretien Orthodoxe, 1853 and 1854. 

2 " Let foreigners bring us light, and we will thank them for it: 
but we beg of them not to bring fire to burn our house about our 
ears." — Saying of a Greek bishop, recorded in Masson's Apology 
for the Greek Church, p. 7. In quoting this little work, which, 
though disfigured by some personal partialities, contains much 
good sense and charity, I cannot forbear to express my obliga- 
tions to its author. To my intercourse with him at Athens, now 
twenty years ago, I owe my first interest in the state of the Greek 
Church. 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. 



%7 



even the sluggish barbarism and stagnation which 
have, humanly speaking, saved so large and so vene- 
rable a portion of the Christian world from the 
consolidation of the decrees of Trent, and from the 
endless subdivisions of Augsburg and Geneva. We 
may remember with satisfaction that should ever the 
hour come for the reawakening of the Churches of 
the East, there is no infallible pontiff at Constanti- 
nople, no hierarchy separated from the domestic 
charities of life, to prevent the religious and social 
elements from amalgamating into one harmonious 
whole. We may thankfully remember that there is 
a theology in the world of which the free, genial 
spirit of Chrysostom is still the golden mouthpiece ; 
a theology in which scholastic philosophy has had 
absolutely no part ; in which the authority alike of 
Duns Scotus and of Calvin are unregarded and un- 
known. Doubtless the future of the whole Church is 
to be sought, not in the East, but in the West. But 
there is a future also for the Church of the East. Have 
we not known characters, venerable from age or 
station, who, with the most immovable adherence to 
ancient hereditary forms of belief and practice, yet, 
when brought into contact with the views of a younger 
and more stirring generation, have by the very 
distance from which they approach given it a new 
turn, showed a capacity for enduring, tolerating, un- 
derstanding it, such as we should have vainly sought 
from others more nearly allied by pursuits or dispo- 
sitions ? Such is, to an indefinite extent, the posi- 
tion of the Eastern Christian towards the Western. 
Kept aloof from our controversies, escaping our 



S 8 



The Lessons of 



Lect. I. 



agitations, he comes npon them with a freedom and 
freshness, which in the wear and tear of the West 
can no longer be found. He has the rare gift of an 
ancient orthodox belief without intolerance and 
without proselytism. He is firmly and proudly 
attached to his own Church and nation, yet has a 
ready and cordial recognition to give to the faith of 
others. He knows, and we know, that although he 
may become a European, yet that we can by no pos- 
sibility become Asiatics. And such a knowledge 
engenders a confidence, which between rivals and 
neighbours is almost unattainable. He stands on the 
confines of the East and West, drawn eastward by 
his habits, by his lineage, by his local position; 
drawn westward by the inevitable, onward, westward 
progress of Christianity and of civilisation. In him, 
therefore, we find a link between those two incom- 
municable spheres, such as can be found no where 
else. The Greek race may yet hand back from Europe 
to Asia the light which, in freer days, it handed on 
from Asia to Europe. The Sclavonic race may yet 
impart by the Yolga or the Caspian the civilisation 
which it has itself received by the Neva and the 
Baltic. 

And we, too, with all our energy and life, may 
learn something from the otherwise unparalleled sight 
of whole nations and races of men, penetrated by the 
religious sentiment which visibly sways their minds 
even when it fails to reach their conduct, which if it 
has produced but few whom we should call saints 
or philosophers, has produced through centuries of 
oppression whole armies of confessors and martyrs. 



Lect. L the Eastern Church. 



59 



land. 



We may learn something from the sight of a calm 
strength, reposing " in the quietness and confidence" 
of a treasure of hereditary belief, which its possessor is 
content to value for himself, without forcing it on 
the reception of others. We may learn something 
from the sight of Churches, where religion is not 
abandoned to the care of women and children, but is 
claimed as the right and the privilege of men ; where 
the Church reposes not so much on the force and 
influence of its clergy as on the independent know- 
ledge and manly zeal of its laity. 

5. Yet once more, — if there is any Church which its use to 
may be expected to learn congenial and useful 0 fEn g - 
lessons from the study of Eastern Christendom, it 
is our own. I do not lay stress on the possible 
connection of the ancient British Church with 
Eastern missionaries before the arrival of Augustine, 
nor on the more certain influence of the East on 
the Anglo-Saxon Church when Theodore of Tarsus 
sate on the throne of Canterbury. These associa- 
tions are too slight to sustain any substantial argu- 
ment. But there are likenesses between our position 
and that of the Eastern Churches, which, amidst 
great differences, may render the knowledge of their 
history specially profitable in the study of our 
own. The national character of our religion, which 
is at once our boast and our reproach, finds a 
parallel — even an exaggerated parallel — in the 
Eastern identification of nationality and creed, such 
as the larger ideas of continental Europe will hardly 
tolerate or understand either in us or in them. The 
relations of Church and State, as portrayed in 



6o 



The Lessons of Lect. I. 



Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, are avowedly based 
on those of the ancient Church of Constantinople, 
and still find their counterpart in the modern 
Church of Russia. And if the ecclesiastical com- 
monwealth of our own little island, with manifold 
contending principles within its pale, and manifold 
sects multiplying without, can be better understood 
by the sight of a like phenomenon, reproduced 
on a gigantic scale, from different causes, in the 
remote East, let no one grudge us this advantage 
from the consideration of the double-sided, con- 
tradictory aspect of the Eastern Churches, or the 
vigour "and wide extension of the Eastern sects. 
And if ever the question, often agitated, should be 
brought to issue, and any changes should be at- 
tempted in the English Prayer-Book, it may be useful 
to bear in mind, that the model of the Eastern Church 
might in this respect guide us through many diffi- 
culties. What has never been received into the 
creeds or the services 1 of Churches venerable as those 
of Eastern Christendom, cannot by any sound argu- 
ment be represented as indispensable to the character 
of the Church of England. 

" I die in the faith of the Catholic Church, 
before the disunion of East and West." Such 
was the dying hope of good Bishop Ken. It 
was an aspiration which probably no one but an 

1 I allude to the passages relating to absolution in the Ordi- 
nation and Visitation Services, and the adoption of the Athana- 
sian Creed. The first two are mediaeval and Latin, as distinct 
from ancient and catholic. (See p. 44.) The third is distinctly 
opposed to the Eastern Church. (See Lecture VII.) 



Lect. I. the Eastern Church. . 61 



English churchman would have uttered. We may 
not be able to go along with the whole of the feeling 
involved in the thought. But it expresses a true 
belief that in the Church of England there is a 
ground of antiquity, of freedom, and of common 
sense, on which we may calmly and humbly con- 
front both of the great divisions of Christendom, 
without laying ourselves open to the charge of 
ignorant presumption, or of learned trifling, or of 
visions that can never be realised. We know, and 
it is enough to know, that the Gospel, the original 
Gospel, which came from the East and now rules in 
the West, is large enough to comprehend them both. 



NOTE ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROCESSION OF THE 
HOLY SPIRIT. 

The question of the Double Procession furnishes so many 
illustrations of the points laid down in the previous Lecture., 
that it may be well to devote a few words to its history. 

1. It brings out forcibly the contrast noticed above be- 
tween the systematising, innovating tendency of the West, 
and the simpler and more conservative tendency of the East. 
The Western insertion of the words "from the Son" 
(JUioque) arose in the Spanish Church, from the logical 
development of the Athanasian doctrine against the Arian 
Visigoths. The Greek refusal to admit these words arose 
from the repugnance to any change in the decrees or creeds 
laid down in the early Councils, analogous to that which 
animated the Russian dissenters against Mcon and Peter 
(see Lecture XII.). 

2. It well exemplifies the double-sided aspect of most 
theological doctrines. Each of the two statements ex- 



62 



Note on the Double Procession. Lect. I. 



presses a truth which the other overlooks or omits. In 
the original statement of the Nicene or Constantinopolitan 
Creed, which makes the Spirit to proceed from the Father 
alone, is the necessary safeguard of the abstract unity of the 
Godhead. It is urged that to make the Spirit proceed 
equally from both the Persons in the Trinity, is to imply 
two principles or originating powers in the Divine Essence. 
In the Western view, which associates the Son with the 
Father, it is maintained that the addition of the disputed 
words was needed to assert the identity of the Father and 
the Son in all the acts of redemption, and especially the 
identity of the Spirit of Christ with the Spirit of God, 
Both statements may be reconciled if the former is under- 
stood as applying to the abstract and eternal essence of the 
Deity, the latter to the Divine operations in the redemption 
of man. If the word {e proceed " (ifCTropsveaOai) be used in 
a strictly scientific, or, it may be added, biblical sense, then 
the Greeks are in the right. If it be used according to 
popular usage, then the Latins are not in the wrong. 

3. It is an excellent specimen of the race of " extinct 
controversies." For nearly a thousand years it seemed to 
the contending parties to be of such importance as to justify 
the rent between East and West. It was probably the 
chief reason for cherishing the Athanasian Creed and the 
anathemas peculiar to that confession (see Lecture VII.). 
By the disputes which it engendered at the Council of 
Florence, it largely contributed to the fall of the Byzantine 
Empire. The capture of Constantinople on Whitsunday 
was regarded in the West as a Divine judgment on the East 
for its heresy in regard to the Spirit, whose festival was thus 
awfully vindicated. Yet now the whole question is laid com- 
pletely to rest. In the West it is never seriously discussed. 
In the East it is remembered, and will never, perhaps, be 
forgotten ; but it is more as a point of honour than of faith ; 
it is more the mode of our Western innovation, than the sub- 
stance of our doctrine, that rouses their indignation. 1 

* For the details of the doctrine, see Adam Zernikoff, as quoted 
by Neale, ii. 1154. Mouravieff, Questions Religieuses, 860. 



Lect. II. The Council of Nicasa. 63 



LECTURE if. 

THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 

The Authorities for the Council of Nicsea are as follows : — 

I. The original documents. 

a. The Creed. 1 Contained in Mansi's Councils, 

b. The Twenty Canons. L ii. 625—701, and the histo- 

c. The Official Letters. J rians given » el °w. 

1. Letter of Constantine, convoking the Bishops from An- 

cyra. (Harris, Analecta Nicsena, 21.) 

2. Letter of Constantine to the Bishops, denouncing the 

books of Arius. 

3. Letter of Constantine against Arius. 

4. Letter of Constantine to the Bishops, containing the 

decree on Easter. 

5. Letter of the Council to the Church of Alexandria, on 

the three points of debate. 

6. Letter of Eusebius to the Church of Cassarea, Theod. i., 

explaining his subscriptions. 

7. Letters of Eusebius and Theognis, praying for re-ad- 

mission. 

8. Letter of Constantine against Eusebius. 

9. Letter of Constantine to Theodotus, warning him against 

Eusebius. 

d. Apocryphal canons, subscriptions, letters, &c, given 

in Mansi's Councils, ii. 710—1071. 

II. Eyewitnesses. 

a. Eusebius of Caesarea in the Life of Constantine, iii. 
4 — 24 ; and in his Letter to the Church of Csesarea. 
(Theod. i. 9.) 



64 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. II. 



b. Athanasius. 

1. The Tract on the Decrees of the Nicene Council. 

2. Epistle to the Africans. 

3. Orations against Arians. 

4. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia. 

c. Eustathius of Antioch. A short extract in Theod. i. 8. 

d. Auxano, a Novatian Presbyter, who had been present 

as a boy. He told his experience to Socrates. (H. E. 

«• i-) 

e. Old people alive in Jerome's time, whom he had seen. 

(Adv. Lucif. c. 20.) 

III. Historians of the next generation. 

1. Kufinus. (H.E. i. 1—6.) a.d. 380—401. 

2. Ambrose. (De Fide.) a.d. 333—397. 

(These are the only two Western authorities.) 

3. Epiphanius. (Hger. Ixix.) a.d. 360 — 401. 

4. Socrates. (H. E. i. 4—14.) a.d. 380—440. 

5. Sozomen. (H. E. i. 15—28.) a.d. 380—443. 

6. Philostorgius. (Arian Fragments.) a.d. 350 — 425. 

7. Theodoret. (H. E. i. 1—13,) a.d. 394-458. 

IV. Later Historians. 

1. Gelasius of Cyzicus. (Fifth century.) Acts of the 

Council, filled with imaginary speeches. The book 
professes to be founded on an old MS. in his father's 
house. 

2. " Eutychius," otherwise " Sayd Ibn Batrik," of 

Cairo, a.d. 876 — 950. Arabic Annals of Alexandria, 
printed by Pococke, and partly edited by Selden. 

3. Gregory the Presbyter. (Tenth century.) " Pane- 

gyric of the Nicene Fathers," printed in the Novum 
Auctarium of Combefis, vol. ii. p. 547. 

4. Nicephorus. a.d. 1390—1450. (H. E. from a.d. 

1—610.) 

V. Modern Historians. — Of these may be selected : 
a. English. 

1. Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," c. 21. 

2. Dean Milman's " History of Christianity under the Em- 

pire," vol. ii. p. 431— 448. 

3. " Some Account of the Council of Nicasa," by Bishop 

Kaye. (1853.) 



Lect. II. The Council of Nicasa. 



65 



b. German. 

1. Ittig's "History of the Council" (a brief documentary 

summary). (1644 — 1710.) 

2. Waleh's "History of Heresies," vol. ii. 385—689. (1762.) 

3. Hefele's "History of the Councils," bookii. (1855.) 

c. French. 

1. Tillemont's "Ecclesiastical History," vol. vi. (1637 — 

1698.) 

2. Fleury's "Ecclesiastical History," book iii. (1640 — 

1723.) 

3. Albert Prince de Broglie's " History of the Church and 

the Empire in the Fourth Century," c. iv. (1857.) 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA AND THE SEVEN GENERAL COUNCILS. 

The earliest important development of the East- 
ern Church is the First General Council of Mcaea. 
This event I propose to describe with all the par- 
ticularity of detail of which it is capable ; to describe 
it in such a way that it may remain fixed in our 
memories ; to describe it, as it appeared to those who 
lived at the time. In this opening Lecture it will 
be my object to vindicate the place which I have 
assigned to it in that portion of Ecclesiastical History 
which I have undertaken to treat, 

I. On the one hand we must consider its peculiar Oriental 

• i i -n m i rm • character 

connection with the Eastern Church. Ihis connec- of the 
tion it has in common with the first Seven General nerai 
Councils. The locality of these great assemblies Couucils ' 
was always Eastern ; in most instances immediately 
in the neighbourhood of the centre of Eastern 
Christendom, within reach of Constantinople. Their 
decrees were written, their debates were conducted, 
not in Latin, but in Greek. They are still honoured 
vol. I. F 



66 



The Council of Nicasa 



Lect. II. 



by the Oriental Church with a reverence which 
hardly any Western Council has received in the 
West. In the cathedrals of Russia, in the monas- 
teries of Athos, in the basilica of Bethlehem, the 
series of the Seven Councils is the constant sub- 
ject of the sacred paintings which cover the south 
wall of the church. Each can be traced by 
its peculiar arrangements, or by the Emperor or 
Empress who presides. Once a year, on the first 
Sunday 1 in Lent, called Orthodox Sunday, all the 
seven Councils are commemorated in one, the anni- 
versary of the last: the service and ceremonial of 
the Church is made to reproduce the image of the 
ancient synods — bishops, presbyters, and deacons, 
seated round in the semicircular form in which the 
old pictures represent them. The Eastern bishops 
still promise in the service of consecration to observe 
their decrees; and not only is their memory pre- 
served in learned or ecclesiastical circles, but even 
illiterate peasants, to whom, in the corresponding 
class of life in Spain or Italy, the names of Constance 
and Trent would probably be quite unknown, are 
well aware that their Church reposes on the basis 
of the Seven Councils, and retain a hope that they 
may yet live to see an eighth General Council, in 
which the evils of the time will be set straight. 
The subjects discussed in the assemblies, and the 
occasions which called them together, were espe- 
cially Eastern and Greek. This could hardly have 
been otherwise. The whole force and learning 
of early Christianity was in the East. A general 
Council in the West would have been almost an 
1 Neale, Hist, of the Eastern Church, Introd. ii. 867. 



Lect. II. 



an Eastern Council. 



67 



absurdity. With the exception of the few writers 
of North Africa, there was no Latin defender of 
the faith. With the exception of Tertullian, there 
was not a single early heretic of eminence in the 
West. The controversies on which the Councils 
turned all moved in the sphere of Grecian and 
Oriental metaphysics. They were such as no 
Western mind could have originated. 

What maybe said of all the Seven Councils, is true and of the 
of the earliest and greatest of them. The Council of Council 
Nicsea was held not in a Western but an Eastern city. especia11 ^ 
Of the three hundred and eighteen bishops whose 
subscriptions were affixed to its decrees, only eight 
at most came from the West. The language of its 
Creed is not only not Latin, but is almost untrans- 
latable into Latin. 1 Grecised forms have been 
adopted for some of its more subtle expressions. 
Others have been modified in order to be accommo- 
dated to their new garb. The one phrase in- 
troduced by the Western Church, " filioque," 2 was 
only introduced gradually, irregularly, and re- 
luctantly, in the West, and has never been ad- 
mitted into the East. In the Western Church the 
ancient Latin, commonly called the " Apostles' 
Creed," has been long since overlaid by later docu- 
ments : by the Creed of Pius V. in the Church of 
Rome, by the numerous Confessions of Augsburg, 
London, Westminster, Geneva, in the Protestant 
Churches. But throughout the Eastern Church the 

1 e. g. Usia (for ovaia) ; Homoiision; Dominum vivificantem (for 

TO KVOIOV TO £(i)07TOlOVp}. 

2 See Lecture I. p. 61. 

f 2 



68 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. II. 



Nicene Creed is still the one bond of faith. It is 
still recited in its original tongue by the peasants 
of Greece. Its recitation is still the culminating 
point of the service in the Church of Eussia. The 
great bell of the Kremlin tower sounds during the 
whole time that its words are chanted. It is 
repeated aloud in the presence of the assembled 
people by the Czar at his coronation. It is worked 
in pearls on the robes of the highest dignitaries of 
Moscow. One of the main grounds of schism in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from the 
Established Church of Kussia 1 was, that the old 
dissenters were seized with the belief that the 
patriarch Nicon had altered one of the sacred words 
of the original text of the creed. The anniversary 
of the Council is still celebrated on special days. 
Every article of the Nicene Creed is exhibited, 
according to the fashion of the Russian Church, in 
little pictures, and thus familiarised to the popular 
mind. 

It is necessary to dwell on the Oriental character 
of the Nicene Council and Creed, because we cannot 
rightly understand it without bearing in mind its 
peculiar origin; and also, because, in justice to the 
Eastern Church, we must remember that whatever 
value we attach to this venerable confession, whatever 
reverence we pay to this great Council, is due, not 
to our own sphere of Christendom, not to the 
Church of Rome, but to that remote region with 
which we have now hardly any concern. The 
position of the Nicene Creed in our Liturgy is a 

1 See Lecture XII. 



Lect. If. Its general Interest. 



69 



perpetual memorial of the distant East. Other like 
memorials remain in the " Kyrie eleison," the " Gloria 
in excelsis," parts of the " Te Deum," and the prayer 
of S. Chrysostom. But more remarkable than these, 
as a link uniting our worship with that of Alexandria 
and Constantinople, is the Creed which was elabo- 
rated by the Egyptian and Syrian Bishops at Nicsea. 

II. But I have also to show that this Oriental General 

. . interest of 

assembly, this Greek confession, have a place in the the Seven 
universal history of the world. To a certain degree, 
and perhaps by a kind of prescriptive right, this 
general interest attaches, as their name would imply, 
to all the Eastern Councils to which by the Greek, 
the Latin, or the Protestant Churches the title of 
"general" or " oecumenical" has been conceded. 

The eight Councils, as enumerated by the Latins, 
the seven as enumerated by the Greeks, all turned on 
controversies producing more important effects than 
have followed on any action of the Oriental Church 
in later times. The doctrines of the first four were 
raised by the Emperor Justinian to the level of the 
Holy Scriptures, and their decrees to the rank of Im- 
perial laws 1 ; and they have even received a limited 
acknowledgment in the Church of England. It is 
well known that in one of the earliest Acts of Eliza- 
beth, which undoubtedly has considerable authority 
as expressive of the mind of the foundress of the 
present constitution of our Church, the Councils of 
Nicsea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon are 

1 " Dogmata, sicut sanctas scripturas, accipimus, et regulas 
sicut leges observamus." — InAuthenticis, collatione ix, tit. vi. De 
Ecclesiasticis Regulis et Privilegiis. Prefixed to the Canons of 
Nicaea, in Routh's Opusc. i. 363. 

F 3 



jo 



General Character of Lect. II. 



raised as judges of heresy to the same level as " the 
High Court of Parliament, with the assent of the 
English clergy in their convocation." 1 Even at the 
present day, in spite of the vast accumulation of 
dogmatic statements in our popular Western theo- 
logy, it is acknowledged by many English churchmen 
that "besides the decrees of the four General Councils, 
nothing is to be required as matter of belief necessary 
for salvation." 2 

Still we cannot say that the importance of all 
these early Councils is fully recognised. Their 
official decrees have never gained a place, and 
are never even mentioned, in our formularies. 
The fifth, sixth, and seventh are rarely named 
by Protestant theologians. The fourth (that of 
Chalcedon) is, as we have seen, rejected by a large 
part of the East. The third (of Ephesus) is repu- 
diated by the Chaldsean Christians, and its distin- 
guishing formula, "the Mother of God," has never 
been frankly accepted by Protestant Churches. The 
Council of Constantinople was avowedly only an 
Eastern assembly. Not a single Western bishop was 
present ; and its oecumenical character, after having 
been entirely passed over by the Council of Ephesus, 
was only tardily acknowledged by the Council of 
Chalcedon. 

and of But with the Nicene assembly it is otherwise. 
Councii ene Alone of all the Councils it still retains a hold 
especially. on ^ e mass 0 £ Christendom. Its creed, as we just 

1 1 Eliz. c. l. 

2 Bishop Taylor's " Advice to his Clergy," quoted in the En- 
chiridion Theologicum,i. 348 ; and again more recently in a volume 
of Oxford University Sermons collected in 1856. 



Lect. II. 



the Council of Nicaea. 



7 i 



now saw, is the only creed accepted throughout the 
Universal Church. The Apostles' Creed and the 
Athanasian Creed have never penetrated into the 
Greek Church. But the Nicene Creed, Greek and 
Eastern though it be, has a place in the liturgies and 
confessions of all Western Churches, at least down to 
the end of the sixteenth century. It was regarded 
at the time, and long afterwards, even by Councils 
which chafed under the acknowledgment, as a final 
settlement of the fundamental doctrines of Christi- 
anity ; and so in a certain sense it has been regarded 
by many theologians of later times. 

And, if we examine the relations of this Council 
to the history of the period, its superiority to the 
later Councils will still hold good. 

1. Eutychianism, Nestorianism, Apollinarianism, Historical 
represent sects which, except in the remote East, have o? Ariaa- C 
not, nor have ever had, any lasting significance. But lsm * 
the Arian sect, the occasion of the Nicene Council, 
though it also has now long been laid to sleep, yet 
for three hundred years after the date of its origin 
represented considerable power, both political and 
religious ; and this, not only in the Eastern regions of 
its birth, but in our own Western and Teutonic na- 
tions. The whole of the vast Gothic population which 
descended on the Roman Empire, so far as it was 
Christian at all, held to the faith of the Alexandrian 
heretic. Our first Teutonic version of the Scrip- 
tures was by an Arian missionary, Ulfilas. The 
first conqueror of Borne, Alaric, the first conqueror 
of Africa, Genseric, were Arians. Theodoric the 
Great, King of Italy, and hero of the Nibelungen 



7 2 



The Council of Nicasa Lect. II. 



Lied, was an Arian. The vacant place in his massive 
tomb at Ravenna is a witness of the vengeance 
which the Orthodox took on his memory, when on 
their triumph they tore down the porphyry vase in 
which his Arian subjects had enshrined his ashes. 
The ferocious Lombards were Arians till they began 
to be won over by their queen Theodelinda, at the 
close of the sixth century. But the most remarkable 
stronghold of Arianism were the Gothic kingdoms of 
Spain and Southern France. In France, it needed 
all the power of Clovis, the one orthodox chief of the 
barbarian nations, to crush it on the plains of 
Poitiers. In Spain, it expired only in the sixth cen- 
tury, when it was renounced by King Recared in 
the basilica of Toledo. But even in that " most 
Catholic" kingdom its traces have been thought to re- 
main in the heretical names which elsewhere in Europe 
had ceased to exist. " Pelagius " is the honoured 
name of the restorer of the monarchy, and the favourite 
divine of Philip II., the first librarian of the Escurial, 
was "Arias Montanus." And of the intensity of the 
Spanish struggle between the ancient expiring heresy 
and the new triumphant orthodoxy, three memorials 
still remain in all Western liturgies, including our 
own. One is the constant recitation of what was 
then considered the orthodox formula — " Gloria 
Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto " — at the close of 
every psalm. Another is the practice (adopted from 
the Eastern Church) of reciting the Nicene Creed in 
its present place, before the administration of the 
Eucharist, to guard that ordinance against Arian 
intruders. The third is the insertion of the words 



Lect. II. as opposed to Arianism. 



73 



"filioque" into the Creed, as an additional safe- 
guard for the Creed itself. 1 These three innovations 
(as they then were) are all said to have proceeded 
from the Councils of Toledo, in their reaction from 
the vanquished Arianism. 

It implies an immense vitality, inherent in the 
orthodox doctrine established at Nicasa, that it should 
have won its way against such formidable antago- 
nists, and should have securely seated itself in the 
heart of the Church for so many subsequent cen- 
turies. 

Constantine, indeed, and even at intervals Atha- 
nasius himself, endeavoured to moderate the zeal to 
which the eager partisans on both sides pursued their 
quarrel at the time; and looking back from later 
times, Erasmus 2 in the Keformation, and Bishop 
Kaye in our own age, have regarded the controversy 
as carried to a pitch beyond any bounds which faith 
or wisdom could reasonably sanction. But the im- 
portance of its actual effects at the time, and for some 
centuries afterwards, on the opinions and the feelings 
of Christendom, can hardly be overstated, and the final 
result is one of those victories which go far to justify 
the cause itself. 

Nor has the interest of the controversy entirely 
ceased with the final extermination of the Arian sect 
by the sword of Clovis, and the conversion of Eecared 
and Theodelinda. From that time no doubt the con- 
tinuous existence of the Arian tradition was broken ; 
and no system of opinions which has since arisen can 

1 See Lecture VII. 

2 See Ittig's Council of Nicsea, § xlvii. 



74 



The Council of Nicasa 



Lect. II. 



be considered as in any true historical sense the re- 
presentative of the old Alexandrian and Gothic 
heresy. The Arianism (as it is sometimes called) 
of Milton, of Whiston, and of Sir Isaac Newton, 
differed in three important particulars (which shall 
shortly be described 1 hereafter) from the system 
of Arius and Eusebius, Nothing is more needed 
in ecclesiastical history than to guard against 
the illusion of inferring an identity of belief and 
feeling, merely from an identity of name. The 
Anabaptists of the nineteenth century are hardly 
more different from the Anabaptists of the six- 
teenth, than the Arians of the seventeenth century 
were from the Arians of the fourth. 

Still the fundamental principle of the old Arian- 
ism, as separate from the logical form and the 
political organisation which it assumed, has hardly 
ever departed from the Church. 2 It has penetrated 
where we should least expect to find it. The theo- 
logical opinions of many who have thought them- 
selves, and been thought by others, most orthodox, 
have been deeply coloured by the most conspicuous 
tendencies of the doctrine of Arius. Often men 
have been attacked as heretics, only because they 
agreed too closely with the doctrine of Athanasius. 
"Ingemuit orbis et miratus est se esse Arianum," 
is a process which has been strangely repeated, more 
than once, in the course of ecclesiastical history. 

1 See Lecture III. p. 96. 

2 On this more general aspect of the controversy, I shall en- 
large in Lecture VII. 



Lect. II. as the Beginning of a new Epoch. 



To track such identity under seeming differences, and 
such differences under seeming identity, is a duty 
prescribed to the Christian theologian by the very 
highest authority. 

2. But over and above the magnitude of the ques- 
tion discussed between Arius and Athanasius, there 
are other considerations which make the first Mcene 
Council a fruitful field of ecclesiastical study. 
• It was the earliest great historical event, so import 
to speak, which had affected the whole Church, period, 
since the close of the Apostolic age. In the two 
intervening centuries there had been many stirring 
incidents, two or three great writers, abundance of 
curious and instructive usages. But all was isolated 
and fragmentary. Even the persecutions are im- 
perfectly known. We are still in the catacombs: 
here and there a light appears to guide us ; here and 
there is the authentic grave of a saint and a martyr, 
or the altar or picture of a primitive assembly ; 
but the regular course of ecclesiastical history is 
still waiting to begin, and it does not begin till the 
Council of Mcsea. Then, for the first time, the 
^Church meets the Empire face to face. The excite- 
ment, the shock, the joy, the disappointment, the 
hope of the meeting communicate themselves to us. 
It is one of those moments in the history of the 
world which occur once, and cannot be repeated. 
It is the last point whence we can look back on the 
dark, broken road of the second and third centuries, 
of which I have just spoken. It is the first point 
whence we can look forward to the new and com- 
paratively smooth and easy course which the Church 



7 6 



The Council of Nicaea Lect. II. 



The Ni- 
cene Coun- 
cil as the 
first exam- 
ple of a 
General 
Council. 



will have to pursue for two centuries, indeed, in 
some sense, for twelve centuries onwards. The line 
of demarcation between the Mcene and the ante- 
Nicene age, is the most definite that we shall find 
till we arrive at the invasion of the barbarians. 

The form, too, which this decisive event assumed, is 
memorable as the first of a series of events which 
have now become extinct. The Council of Nicasa 
is the first " General Council" — the first of that long 
series of eighteen synods which ended, and in all pro- 
bability has ended for ever, in the Council of Trent. 
In the church in which was held the last session of 
that latest of the Councils, is a vaunting inscription, 
which unconsciously conveys the truth that this 
was the end of the succession, of which it brought up 
the rear :~— 

" Sacra limina ingressus 
Infra qjjm postremum 
Spiritus Sanctus 
Deus jeternus munificus 
solator ecclesi^ catholics 
Per concilium magnum legitimum 

Oracula effudit, 
quisquis es 
mltte tibi pr^optari 
NlCjEJM, Constantinopolim, 
Chalcedonem, Lugdunum, 
vlennam, constantiam, 

Florentiam. 
Roma ipsa hoc nomine 
tlbi par non majus dedit." 



Wide as was the difference between the first and 
the last, yet still there is a family likeness, which 
renders each an illustration of the other ; and which, 



Lect. II. 



as a deliberative Assembly. 



77 



therefore, renders the study of any one of them a 
study of all. Of all the institutions recorded in 
ecclesiastical history they are, or ought to be, the 
most significant. And, if the first Council of Nicsea 
be the one which, by its antiquity and its sanctity, 
commands the most general homage, we shall have 
in its sessions the advantage of observing a Council 
under the most favourable circumstances. 

There are three characteristics which were fixed 
in the Council of Nicsea, and which it shared more 
or less with all that followed. 

a) First, as its name implies, it is the earliest ex- 
ample of a large assembly professing to represent the 
voice and the conscience of the whole Christian com- 
munity. Meetings and synods there had been before, 
but this was the first open inauguration of them, 
in the face of day. Its title at the time was, in 
contradistinction to all which had gone before — 
M The Great and Holy Synod." 

It was the decisive sanction of the doctrine that Delibera- 
a free and numerous assembly is the best channel raSe^of 
for arriving at Christian truth. It is obvious that Councils * 
this was not the necessary or only course that might 
have been pursued. In heathen ages, and also in 
many Christian ages, decisions have been sought in 
particular spots or from particular persons, oracles, 
hermits, shrines, gifted men, sovereigns, bishops, 
popes. But none of these courses were adopted in 
the first times of the Church. Even as far back as 
the apostolic age the most important question which 
agitated the Christian community was determined, 
not, indeed, by a gathering of different Churches, 



78 



The Council of Nicasa Lect. II. 



but still by an assembly in some respects far more 
democratic than any which succeeded. The Council 
of Jerusalem consisted not only of the apostles and 
elders, but of the brethren also. It was a decision 
of the whole Church of Jerusalem, laity as well as 
clergy. This, as far as we know, was the last in- 
stance of such an extension of the legislative body 
of the Church. But the principle of a popular 
as distinguished from an individual authority was 
recognised in all the provincial synods, and was 
finally adopted on the grandest scale at the Mcene 
Council. Freedom and deliberation were thus pro- 
claimed to be the best means of deciding a ques- 
tion of high Christian doctrine. Whether the means 
succeeded or not, is not now the question. But 
it is remarkable that in that age of despotism and 
political inactivity it should have been adopted at 
all. As it has been said that the early Christian 
bishops were the only likenesses of the tribunes of the 
ancient Eoman republic, so it may be said that the 
Councils were the only likenesses of the ancient 
Eoman senates. The old spirit of liberty which had 
died away, or been suppressed everywhere else, 
revived, or was continued, in the ecclesiastical 
synods of the Empire, just as now in France, free 
discussion, banished from all other places, still 
maintains its hold in the literary and scientific 
meetings of the Institute. The Christian Church 
is not the only religious system which has had the 
courage to intrust its highest interests to the 
decision of large and, at times, tumultuous assem- 
blies; it is one of the curious parallels often 



Lect. II. as a deliberative Assembly. 



79 



observed between Christianity and the outward 
forms of the wide- spread religion of Buddhism, that 
there also general councils 1 have been called to decide 
questions of faith and discipline. But this is the 
only parallel. Nothing of the kind existed in 
ancient paganism, and nothing of the kind has arisen 
in modern Mahomedanism. Whatever might be the 
disadvantages and weaknesses attendant upon the 
institution, the Christian Church must have the 
credit of having made the effort of giving to all 
its members a voice in the settlement of its highest 
interests, and of uniting all the various elements of 
which it was composed, from time to time, for one 
common purpose. 

And they are also the first precedents of the 
principle of representative government. The M- 
cene Council, like those which followed, and (with 
the exception of that recorded in the Acts of 
the Apostles) like those which preceded, consisted 
chiefly, if not exclusively, of bishops. But the 
bishops at that time were literally the represen- 
tatives 2 of the Christian communities over which 
they presided. They were elected by universal 
suffrage, and they considered themselves respon- 
sible to their constituents, to a degree which at 
times reminds us, even painfully, of the vices of 
modern constitutional government. Eusebius felt 
himself bound to explain to his diocese at Caesarea 

1 For the Buddhist councils see Tumour's translation of the 
Mahawanso, i. 11 — 43. The first council was held B.C. 543; 
the second, b C. 443 ; the third, B.C. 309. 

2 evtoXe'iq. Mansi, Concil. vii. 58. 



8o 



The Council of Nicaea Lect. II. 



the grounds on which he had given his vote at 
Nicsea; and at Chalcedon, so intense was the fear 
of their countrymen entertained by the Egyptian 
bishops, that they threw themselves in an agony at 
the feet of the Council, with the cry of, " Spare us 
— kill us here, if you will — but do not send us home 
to certain death. The whole province of Egypt will 
rise against us.' 71 

b) Another characteristic of a General Council 
first exemplified at Nicsea is stated in somewhat 
polemical language, but still with substantial truth, 
in the well-known words of the 21st of the Thirty- 
nine Articles of the Church of England : " General 
Councils may not be gathered together but by the 
commandment and will of Princes." 

What the Article here states controversially as 
against the Church of Rome, was a recognised fact 
and principle in the historical constitution of a 
General Council. It was almost implied in the mean- 
ing of the word. An " (Ecumenical Synod," that is, 
an " Imperial gathering " from the whole o\xou^kvri, 
or Empire (for this was the technical meaning of 
the word, even in the Greek 2 of the New Testament), 
could be convened only by the Emperor. This was 
assumed as a matter of course in the case of Nicsea, 
and indeed of all the Eastern Councils. Not only no 
single bishop, but no single prince 3 (unless we take 

1 See Mansi, Concil. vii. 57. 

2 See Luke ii. 1. 

3 We must bear in mind, that in the sixteenth century, the word 
" prince " was used for " sovereign," as e. g. in the case of Eliza- 
beth, and probably it was here used in its classical sense for the 
" Princeps " or Roman Emperor. 



Lect. II. as an Imperial Assembly. 81 



the word in its most ancient sense), was sufficient to 
convene a general assembly from all parts of that 
vast territory. A Council was part, as it were, of the 
original constitution of the Christian Empire; and 
however much disputed afterwards in the entangle- 
ment of civil and ecclesiastical relations in the West, 
the principle has never been wholly abandoned. 
When the Western Empire fell, the Eastern Emperor 
still retained the inalienable right, and when the 
Eastern Emperor became inaccessible to the needs of 
European Christendom, and a new "Holy Koman 
Empire " was erected in the West, then the Empe- 
ror of Germany (solely or, more properly, conjointly 
with his Byzantine brother) succeeded to the rights 
of Constantine. We shall see in the forms of the 
Council of Nicaea the earliest precedents, not so 
much of our ecclesiastical synods as of our parlia- 
ments, convened by the writ of the sovereign, opened 
by his personal presence, swayed by his personal 
wishes and advice. And if we look from the first to 
the fourth General Council, of which the forms are 
more fully preserved, and in which perhaps the inde- 
pendence both of the Roman citizen and of the Chris- 
tian bishop had sunk to a lower pitch, we shall see 
in the reception of the Emperor Marcian and the Em- 
press Pulcheria, who came with their whole court to 
ratify the decrees of Chalcedon, something more than 
a mere nominal presidency. The assembled Bishops 
exclaimed (and here I give the words as reported 
at the time) : " To Marcian, the new Constantine, the 
new Paul, the new David, long years — long years 
to our sovereign lord David. . . . You are the 

VOL. I. Gr 



82 



The Council of Nicasa Lect. II. 



peace of the world, long life. Your faith will defend 
you. Thou honourest Christ. He will defend thee. 
Thou hast established orthodoxy. ... To the 
august Empress, many years. You are the lights of 
orthodoxy. . . . Orthodox from her birth, God 
will defend her. Defender of the faith, may God 
defend her. Pious, orthodox enemy of heretics, God 
will defend her. Thou hast persecuted all the 
heretics. May the evil eye be averted from your 
Empire. Worthy of the faith, worthy of Christ. So 
are the faithful sovereigns honoured. . . . Marcian 
is the new Constantine, Pulcheria is the new Helena. 
. . . . Your life is the safety of all ; your faith 
is the glory of the churches. By thee the world ^s 
at peace ; by thee the orthodox faith is established ; 
by thee heresy ceases to be : long life to the Emperor 
and Empress." 1 

This secular character (I use the word in no invi- 
dious sense), thus stamped upon the institution of 
Councils from the first, they never lost. Western 
Christendom, separated from the Byzantine Imperial 
court, and never completely subjugated to its own 
Imperial head in Germany, was not equally dependent 
on the Emperor for its general assemblies. But 
they were still cast in the same Imperial mould. 
The sanction of the Emperor was still required. 2 
An appeal to a General Council was the half-tem- 
poral half- spiritual weapon which the Emperors and 

1 Mansi, vii. 170. 

2 The first Pope, said to have called a Council, is Pelagius II., 
a.d. 587. But the Epistle in which the right is claimed is a for- 
gery. (Robertson, i. 547. 2nd ed.) 



Lect. II. 



as an Imperial Assembly. 



83 



Kings of Europe always held in reserve as a rejoinder 
to a Papal interdict. Even so submissive a sovereign 
as Philip II. did not hesitate to use the threat to the 
refractory Paul IY. Even so late as the Council 
of Constance, the Emperor Sigismund appeared in 
person. In the Council of Trent, the ambassa- 
dors of all the courts of Europe were there to 
represent their absent masters. The Imperial am- 
bassador sits in the highest place, the Erench the 
next, and the Spaniard, unwilling to concede the 
second place to any one but the most Catholic king, 
sits proudly aloof in the centre. 

It is important to notice this control and admix- 
ture of secular and lay authority, not only allowed 
but courted by the highest and most venerable of 
ecclesiastical synods, because it may tend to reconcile 
sensitive churchmen of our own country to a like 
control over English convocations, or Scottish gene- 
ral assemblies. 1 It further reminds us how the Coun- 
cils of the Church, in the time of their grandeur, 
were mixed up with the general history of the world, 
and thus became the expression of the age. The 
Council of Mcsea was, in the eyes of its contem- 
poraries, far the most important gathering that had 
taken place in the Roman Empire in the time of Con- 
stantine, or even since the virtual suppression of the 
Roman senate. The Council of Constance was at least 
as closely interwoven with all the passions and feel- 

1 See "The Councils of the Church" by Dr. Pusey,— written 
with the express intention of allaying the alarms of English 
churchmen occasioned by the theological decisions of the Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council. 



The Council of Nicasa Lect. II. 



ings of the fifteenth century, as the Congress of Vienna 
could have been with those of the nineteenth. It is 
well also to remember that this intimate connection of 
the Councils with the constitution of the ancient 
Empire, furnishes one strong ground for the predic- 
tion, which I ventured to make just now, that in all 
probability a General Council will never be held again. 
According to the only precedents universally recog- 
nised, an (Ecumenical Synod cannot be summoned 
except by the Emperor, and " the Emperor," in that 
sense of the word in which alone he could be made 
available, has ceased to exist. There is now no longer 
an Empire of the West ; the modern Empire of Austria 
and the modern Empire of France are merely separate 
kingdoms under lofty titles. There is, in a truer sense, 
an Emperor of the East. But no one will suppose it 
probable that the authority of the Russian Czar 
would ever be recognised in the kingdoms or churches 
of the West, even putting aside the intense eccle- 
siastical animosity with which the Latin Church 
would regard any such attempt. General Councils 
were part and parcel of the Imperial Constitution of 
Europe — but with the dissolution of that venerable 
fabric they have, we may be almost sure, been laid 
aside in their ancient form never to .reappear. 

c) And this prepares us to consider the remaining 
portion of the somewhat harsh, but still, as I said, 
incontestable, description of them in the language of 
the twenty-first Article. 4i When they be gathered 
together " (at that time, we may here observe, the 
Article contemplated the recurrence of the event as 
not entirely impossible), " forasmuch as they be 



Lect. II. as a mixed Assembly. 



85 



assemblies of men, whereof all be not governed with 
the Spirit and word of God, they may err, and some- 
times have erred, even in things pertaining unto God." 
It is absolutely necessary to claim the freedom of cri- 
ticism on which these words insist. With every dispo- Fallible 

1 , , ,. . , . character 

sition to honour these assemblies, — with every desire of General 
to make allowance for their weaknesses, and to esteem 
the results of their labours, — it is impossible to 
understand them rightly, or even to do justice to 
their merits, without remembering throughout that 
they were assemblies of fallible men, swayed by the 
good and evil influences to which all assemblies are 
exposed. 

We need not adopt the extreme language of 
condemnation into which Gregory Nazianzen 1 was 
driven, irritated, no doubt, by the excesses which he 
himself witnessed: — " I never yet saw a council of 
bishops come to a good end." " I salute them afar 
off, since I know how troublesome they are." " I 
never more will sit in those assemblies of cranes 
and geese." It is enough to remember, in the 
wise language of Dean Milman, how almost in- 
evitable is the disappointment which we experience 
on finding the repulsive aspect which Christianity 
assumes in the very assemblies which should represent 
it in its best and most attractive form. " A Gene- 
ral Council," he justly observes 2 , "is not the cause, 
" but the consequence of religious dissension. It is 
" unnecessary, and could hardly be convoked, but on 
" extraordinary occasions, to settle some questions 



1 Ep. 124, 136; Carm. xvii. 91. 2 Latin Christianity, i. 156. 

g 3 



86 



The Council of Nicaea Lect. II. 



" which have already violently disorganised the peace 
" of Christendom. It is a field of battle in which a 
" long train of animosities and hostilities is to come to 
" an issue. Men, therefore, meet with all the exeite- 
" ment, the estrangement, the jealousy, the antipathy, 
" engendered by a fierce and obstinate controversy. 
u They meet to triumph over their adversaries, rather 
u than dispassionately to investigate truth. Each is 
" committed to his opinions, each exasperated by op- 
" position, each supported by a host of intractable fol- 
44 lowers, each probably with exaggerated notions of 
" the importance of the question, and that importance 
" seems to increase, since it has demanded the deci- 
" sion of a general assembly of Christendom." 

Let us approach the Council of Nicsea with these 
humbler expectations, and we shall be agreeably sur- 
prised to find how many incidents of moderation and 
charity and simplicity it contains amidst much fierce 
animosity, and much pardonable enthusiasm. 

There is a well known, perhaps somewhat flippant, 
passage, in which Jortin remarks on the possible mo- 
tives by which such an assembly would be influenced : 
— " It may be," he says, " by reverence to the Em- 
"peror, or to his counsellors and favourites, or the 
" fear of offending some great prelate (as the Bishop 
" of Alexandria or of Rome), who had it in his power 
" to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within 
" and without his jurisdiction; by the dread of pass- 
" ing for heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, 
" hated, anathematised, excommunicated, imprisoned, 
"banished, fined, beggared, starved, if they refused to 
" submit; by the love of peace and quiet ; by the hatred 



Lect. II. as a mixed Assembly. 87 



" of contention ; by compliance with an active body 
"and imperious spirit; by a deference to the majo- 
" rity ; by a love of dictating and domineering, of ap- 
a plause and respect; by vanity and ambition; by a 
total ignorance of the question in debate, or a total 
" indifference about it ; by private friendships ; by 
" enmity and resentment ; by old prejudices ; by hopes 
u of gain ; by an indolent disposition ; by good- nature 
u and the fatigue of attending ; by the desire to be at 
" home," &c. &c. &C. 1 Many of these feelings may 
doubtless have been at work in the sittings of Nicsea ; 
indeed the passage must have been partly suggested 
by the enumeration of motives in the history of Euse- 
bius. 2 But we have every reason to suppose that 
such passions had far less control over the Council of 
Nicsea than over those which followed. It would 
be easy to multiply instances of the crimes and follies 
which disfigured the Christian assemblies of later 
times. We need not dwell on the exceptional case 
of the murder of John Huss at Constance, or repeat 
how at the second Council of Ephesus the Bishop of 
Constantinople was trampled down and stamped to 
death by the Bishop of Alexandria. But it may 
be well to give one authentic scene from the Council 
of Chalcedon, in numbers and in dignity far the 
most distinguished of the Seven. 3 I quote from the 
Beport of the Council itself. The moment is that 
of the Imperial officers ordering that Theodoret, the 
excellent Bishop of Kars, well known as the com- 
mentator and ecclesiastical historian, should enter 



1 Remarks on Eccl. History, i. 188. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 6. 

g 4 



3 Mansi, vi. 590, 591. 



88 



The Council of Nicasa Lect. II. 



the assembly : — " And when the most reverend 
" Bishop Theodoret entered, the most reverend the 
" Bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine shouted 
" out — 4 Mercy upon us ! the faith is destroyed. The 
" 4 canons of the Church excommunicate him. Turn 
44 4 him out ! turn out the teacher of Nestorius ! • On 
44 the other hand, the most reverend the Bishops of 
44 the East, of Thrace, of Pontus, and of Asia, shouted 
44 out — 'We were compelled [at the former Council] 
" 4 to subscribe our names to blank papers; we were 
44 4 scourged into submission. Turn out the Mani- 
4 4 4 chasans. Turn out the enemies of Flavian; turn 
44 4 out the adversaries of the faith ! ' Dioscorus, the 
44 most reverend Bishop of Alexandria said, — 4 Why 
44 4 is Cyril to be turned out ? It is he whom Theo- 
4 4 4 doret has condemned.' The most reverend the 
44 Bishops of the East shouted out, — 4 Turn out the 
4 4 4 murderer Dioscorus. Who knows not the deeds 
4 4 4 of Dioscorus ?'.... The most reverend 
44 the Bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine shouted 
44 out — 4 Long life to the Empress !" The most re- 
44 verend the Bishops of the East shouted out — 
4 4 4 Turn out the murderers.' The most reverend 
44 the Bishops of Egypt shouted out — 4 The Empress 
4 4 4 turned out Nestorius; long life to the Catholic 
44 4 Empress ! The Orthodox synod refuses to admit 
44 4 Theodoret.' " Theodoret then being at last re- 
ceived by the Imperial officers, and taking his place, 
44 the most reverend Bishops of the East shouted out 
44 — 4 He is worthy — worthy.' The most reverend 
44 the Bishops of Egypt shouted out — 4 Don't call 
44 4 him bishop, he is no bishop. Turn out the fighter 



Lect. II. 



as a mixed Assembly. 



8 9 



4 'against God; turn out the Jew.' The most re- 
4 verend the Bishops of the East shouted out — ' The 
4 4 Orthodox for the synod. Turn out the rebels ; 
4 4 turn out the murderers/ The most reverend the 
4 Bishops of Egypt — 4 Turn out the enemy of God. 
4 4 Turn out the defamer of Christ. Long life to the 
4 4 Empress, long life to the Emperor, long life to 
4 4 the Catholic Emperor ! Theodoret condemned 
4 4 Cyril. If we receive Theodoret, we excommuni- 
44 cate Cyril/" 

At this point the Imperial Commissioners who 
were present put a stop to the clamour, as unworthy 
a meeting of Christian bishops. We shall, doubt- 
less, agree with them. My object in recalling so 
scandalous a scene has been, first, that we may 
not form too high a standard of what we are 
to expect from the first Council; secondly, that 
we may be the better able to do justice to its un- 
doubted superiority over the conduct of the later 
assemblies. 

But we must not forget the good as well as the Mod era- 
evil, which the Councils — and not least that of Nicsea nerai 
— shared with all large assemblies of fallible men 
everywhere ; namely, the unconscious moderation 
which springs up from bringing two parties face to 
face with each other. No doubt violent and extreme 
partisans are often exasperated against one another 
by personal contact and conflict. But the vast mass 
of intervening shades of opinion is by such meetings 
drawn more closely together. Probably no Council 
has separated without making some friends who were 
before enemies, and some friends closer than before. 



9 o 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. II. 



Such, in an eminent degree, was the express object 
and result of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. No 
doubt even then there was the separation between 
Paul and Barnabas, and the quarrel between Paul 
and Peter. But on the whole the assembly brought 
together, instead of dividing asunder, the true ser- 
vants of Christ. It agreed to tolerate, without ap- 
proving or condemning, the differences which it 
was called to adjudge. The Jewish Apostles gave 
the right hand of fellowship to the Apostle of the 
Gentiles. The Church of Jerusalem determined not 
to lay upon the Gentiles the yoke which it was 
willing to bear itself. Assemblies so minded, and so 
deciding, have doubtless been very rare. But both 
in intention and effect the Council of Nicsea partook 
largely of that first Apostolic example. The esti- 
mation in which we at this moment hold the writings 
of Eusebius of Csesarea, is a proof of the kindly feel- 
ing which then gathered round him and his party, 
and which has never since been entirely dissipated. 
The professed object of those who directed the deci- 
sions of the Council was to include as wide a number 
as possible ; and every succeeding Council and creed 
(with whatever provocation or justification for doing 
so) has yet been a narrowing of the basis on which 
the first Council took its stand. 

III. Such being the general interest of the Council of 
Nicsea, there are several peculiarities in its history 
which render the study of it instructive in detail. 

1. The original narratives are in great measure 
derived from contemporary sources. The Acts, 
indeed, or Keports of the Council (such as are pre- 



Lect; II. 



Its Sources. 



91 



served in the case of the Councils of Ephesus and 
Chalcedon), never existed, or have perished. But 
the decrees and the official letters of the Council 
and of the Emperor remain ; and we have the ac- 
counts, more or less perfect, of not less than four 
eye-witnesses. 

2. Both amongst these eye-witnesses, and amongst Sources on 

° J . . both sides, 

the later historians, we have the help which in 
all history, especially ecclesiastical history, is much 
to be desired, of the representations of both sides. 
As in the history of the Council of Trent we have 
the double account of Pallavicini and Sarpi, so here 
we have the double account of Athanasius and Eu- 
sebius. Gibbon longs for a Sarpi at Nicsea. But, 
in fact, we have a Paul Sarpi, not indeed as regards 
wisdom or learning, but certainly as regards his in- 
difference, if not hostility, to the successful party of 
the Council, in Eusebius himself. Without entering 
into the much disputed question of the precise shade 
of his Arianism, there can be no doubt of his leaning 
to that side ; and so far, therefore, it cannot be said 
that the defeated party have been left without a 
spokesman : and on the same side we must add the 
fragments from the avowed Arian, Philostorgius. 
The Meletians, in like manner, (to take a smaller sec- 
tion of the Council,) are represented by Epiphanius; 
the Novatians, by the aged informant of Socrates. 
Of the three chief historians, too, of the next genera- 
tion, two (Socrates and Sozomen) are not clergymen, 
but laymen and lawyers ; and of these, Socrates is at 
times quite remarkable for his philosophical candour ; 
and the third, Theodoret, although a bishop and a 



92 



The Council of Niccea. 



Lect. II. 



theologian, belonged to the moderate party in the 
Church, and had at one time been himself under a 
grave suspicion of heresy. 

3. The legendary tales which have been formed 
on the basis of the historical facts have a twofold 
interest. They well represent those two classes 
which Arnold has described in his history of Rome \ 
" equally remote from historical truth, but in all 
" other respects most opposite to each other; the one 
" imaginative but honest, playing with facts, and 
" converting them into a wholly different form, but 
" addressing itself also to a different part of the mind; 
" not professing to impart exact knowledge, but to 
" quicken and raise the perception of what is beautiful 
" and noble ; the other, tame and fraudulent, delibe- 
" rately corrupting truth, in order to minister to 
" national or individual vanity, but substituting in 
" the place of reality the representations of interested 
" or servile falsehood." To the former of these 
classes belongs, in the old Roman history, the legend 
of the fall of Veii ; in the history of Nicsea, the 
legends of the different saints who were present. 
To the latter belong, in the Pagan history, the pre- 
tended victory of Camillus over the Gauls; in the 
Christian history, the inventions intended to exalt 
the see of Rome, or to blacken the character of the 
Arians. 2 Both are instructive. The former convey 
to us a sense of the deep impression made by the 
Council on the popular mind. The latter exhibit 
to us what the history would have been (but is not), 



1 i. 393. 



Lectures III. and V. 



Lect. II. 



Its Characters. 



93 



had it taken place according to the theories and 
wishes of later times. 1 

4. The details which, from whatever quarter, we its cha- 
thus gain of the Nicene Council are far more im- 
portant than they would be in any other Council. 
They disclose to us a section of the different layers 
of society in that period. The effect of this is, that 
we share in the good fortune of those who attended 
the Council, and through their eyes become per- 
sonally acquainted with many of the most famous 
personages of that age — some famous in all ages. 
Most of them we shall sufficiently see in the Council 
itself. 2 But there are two whose eminence so far 
transcends the limits of that particular event, and the 
understanding of whose characters is so necessary for 
the understanding of the whole event, as to demand 
a special notice. It will be worth while to have 
known something of the Council, if only it enables 
us to take a nearer view of two men so extraordinary 
as Constantine 3 and Athanasius. 4 

1 To the catalogue of works given at the head of this Lecture, 
should be added the lost history of the Council of Nicasa (in « 
Syriac) by Maruthas, Bishop of Tagrit or Maipherkin, in Mesopo- 
tamia (a.d. 410), "Opus valde aureum : sed proh dolor ! necdum 
inventum." (Asseman. Biblioth. Orient, i. p. 177, 195.) 

2 Lecture III. 3 Lecture VI. 4 Lecture VII. 



94 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. III. 



LECTURE III. 

THE MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. 

In the close of the month of May, 1853, it was my 
good fortune to be descending, in the moonlight of 
an early morning, from the high wooded steeps of 
one of the mountain-ranges of Bithynia. As the 
dawn rose, and as we approached the foot of these 
hills, through the thick mists which lay over the plain 
there gradually broke upon our view the two features 
which mark the city of Nicsea. 
The pre- Beneath us lay the long inland lake — the Ascanian 

sent ap- _ .... 

pearance Lake, which, communicating at its western extremity 
by a small inlet with the Sea of Marmora, fills up 
almost the whole valley ; — itself a characteristic of 
the conformation of this part of Asia Minor. Such 
another is the Lake of Apollonius, seen from the sum- 
* mit of the Mysian Olympus. Such another is the 
smaller lake seen in traversing the plain on the way 
from Broussa. 

At the head of the lake appeared the oblong 
space enclosed by the ancient walls, of which the 
rectangular form indicates with unmistakable pre- 
cision the original founders of the city. It was the 
outline given to all the Oriental towns built by the 
successors of Alexander and their imitators, Antioch, 
.Damascus, Philadelphia, Sebaste, Palmyra, were all 



Lect. III. The Council of Nicasa. 95 

constructed on the same model of a complete square, 
intersected by four straight streets adorned with 
a colonnade on each side. This we know to have 
been the appearance of Nicsea 1 , as founded by Lysi- 
machus, and rebuilt by Antigonus. And this is still 
the form of the present walls, which, although they 
enclose a larger space than the first Greek city, yet are 
evidently as early as the time of the Roman Empire ; 
little later, if at all, than the reign of Constantine. 
Within their circuit all is now a wilderness; over 
broken columns, and through tangled thickets, the 
traveller with difficulty makes his way to the wretched 
Turkish village of Is-nik (ei$ N/xa/av), which oc- 
cupies the centre of the vacant space. In the midst 
of this village, surrounded by a few ruined mosques, 
on whose summits stand the never-failing storks of 
the deserted cities of the East, remains a solitary 
Christian church, dedicated to "the Repose of the 
Virgin." Within the church is a rude picture comme- 
morating the one event which, amidst all the vicissi- 
tudes of Mcsea, has secured for it an immortal name. 

To delineate this event, to transport ourselves 
back into the same season of the year, — the chestnut 
woods then as now green with the first burst of 
summer, the same sloping hills, the same tranquil 
lake, the same snow-capped Olympus from far 
brooding over the whole scene, but, in every other 
respect, how entirely different! — will be my object 
in this Lecture. 

The meeting of a General Council is, as I have 
elsewhere said, in ecclesiastical history, what a 
1 Strabo, xii. 565. 



96 The Council of Nicaaa. Lect. III. 



Its occa- 
sion. 



1. The 
Arian con- 
troversy. 



Its abs- 
tract dog- 
matism. 



Its Po- 
lytheism. 



pitched battle is in military history, and similar 
questions naturally rise in speaking of each. 

I. The first question is, Why was it fought ? • 

Two opposite forces concurred in bringing about 
the Council of Nicaea. 

1. The first was the Arian controversy. To 
enter into the details of the contest would lead 
me too far away from the subject, and they have 
been told sufficiently in histories accessible to all. 
But three points must be briefly mentioned to mark 
its precise connection with the history of the time. 

First : It was distinguished from all modern con- 
troversies on like subjects by the extremely abs- 
tract region within which it was confined. The 
difiiculties which gave rise to the heresy of Arius 
had but a slight resemblance to those which have 
given birth to the opinions which have borne his 
name in modern times. He was led to adopt his 
peculiar dogma from a fancied necessity arising out - 
of the terms " Father " and " Son ; " — " begotten " 
and " unbegotten." The controversy turned on 
the relations of the Divine Persons in the Trinity, 
not only before the Incarnation, before Creation, 
before Time, but before the first beginnings of Time. 
" There was " — the Arian doctrine did not venture 
to say " a time " — but " there was when He was 
not." It was the excess* of dogmatism founded upon 
the most abstract words in the most abstract region 
of human thought. 

Secondly: A serious cause of the apprehension 
which the Arian doctrine excited when the Ortho- 
dox considered the ultimate consequences to which 



Lect. III. 



Its Occasion. 



97 



it might lead them, was not so much its denial or 
infringement of the Divinity of Christ (although the 
controversy naturally opened into this further ques- 
tion), as its making two Gods instead of one, and 
thus relapsing into Polytheism. Polytheism, Pagan- 
ism, Hellenism, was the enemy from which the 
Church had just been delivered by Constantine ; and 
this was the enemy under whose dominion it was 
feared that the dividing, dogmatising spirit of Arius 
' might bring them back. Greece and the East, far 
more than Italy and the West, were the true native 
seats of the old Pagan idolatries, and therefore the 
Eastern, far more than the Western, Church was 
sensitive on the subject of anything that tended, 
even remotely, to revive the multiplication of deities. 
" I believe in God" was the usual formula of the 
Western creeds. But, irrespectively of the Council 
of Nicsea, the formula of the Eastern creeds was, 
"I believe in one 1 God." Whether or not the Poly- 
theistic conclusion was fairly to be deduced from 
the Arian doctrine, it is certain that this was the 
inference which the Orthodox party feared, and 
to this fear peculiar significance was given by the 
time and place in which the Arian doctrine first 
arose. 

Thirdly (which is the most important point in Vehe- 

mence o 

reference to the actual convention of the Council), the con- 

test 

was the intense vehemence with which the contro- 

1 SeeKufinusin Symb. § 4, and the note in Professor Heurtley's 
Harmonia Symbolica, p. 127. The same feeling appears in the 
earnestness of the Eastern Church in behalf of the Single Proces- 
sion. See Lecture I. p. 61. 

VOL. I. H 



9 8 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. III. 



versy was carried on. When we perceive the 
abstract questions on which it turned, when we 
reflect that they related not to any dealings of the 
Deity with man, not even, properly speaking, to 
the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ, nor to the 
doctrine of the Trinity, (for all these points were 
acknowledged by both parties,) but to the ineffable 
relations of the Godhead before the remotest be- 
ginning of time, it is difficult to conceive that by 
inquiries such as these the passions of mankind 
should be roused to fury. Yet so it was, — at least 
in Egypt, where it first began. All classes took part 
in it, and almost all took part with equal energy. 
" Bishop rose against Bishop," says Eusebius, " dis- 
trict against district, only to be compared to the 
Symplegades dashed against each other on a stormy 
day." 1 So violent were the discussions that they 
were parodied in the Pagan theatres, and the Em- 
peror's statues were broken in the public squares in 
the conflicts which took place. The common name 
by which the Arians and their system were desig- 
nated (and we may conclude that they were not 
wanting in retorts) was the Maniacs — the Ario- 
maniacs, the Ariomania 2 ; and their frantic con- 
duct on public occasions afterwards goes far to 
justify the appellation. Sailors, millers, and travellers 
sang the disputed doctrines at their occupations, 
or on their journeys : 3 " every corner, every alley of 
the city" (this is said afterwards of Constantinople, 
but must have been still more true of Alexandria) 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 4. 3 See Lecture IV. 

2 See Newman's note on Athanasius's Treatises, i. 91. 



Lect. III. 



Its Occasion. 



99 



" was full of these discussions — the streets, the 
market-places, the drapers, the money-changers, the 
victuallers. Ask a man how many oboli, he answers 
by dogmatising on generated and ungenerated being. 
Inquire the price of bread, and you are told, 6 The Son 
is subordinate to the Father.' Ask if the bath is 
ready, and you are told, 4 The Son arose out of no- 
thing.'" 1 

2. This was one side of the scene. On the other 2. inter- 
side arose a power and a character hitherto un- theEm- C 
known in the Christian Church. The Emperor of peror " 
the world now for the first time appeared in the 
arena of theological controversy. He entered upon 
his relations to the Church as a traveller enters 
a new country — with high expectations, with hasty 
conclusions, with bitter disappointments. Of all 
these disappointments none was so severe as that 
which he felt when first he became acquainted with 
the fact that the Christian as well as the heathen 
commonwealth was torn by factions. It had broken 
upon him gradually — first at Aries, then at Rome, 
when the African controversy of the Donatists 
was brought before him. But the culminating point 
was their wild outbreak, as it must have seemed to 
him, in the important province of Egypt. We know 
his feelings from himself. In the celebrated letter 
which he addressed to the Alexandrian Church — ■ 
however much it may have been suggested or modi- 
fied by one or other of his episcopal advisers — the 
sentiments are so like what he expressed on other 
occasions, that we may fairly adopt them as his own. 

1 Greg. Nyss. de Deitate Fil. iii. 466. (Neander, iv. 61.) 
h 2 



IOO 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. III. 



He describes (as usual, with the attestation of an 
oath 1 ) his mission of uniting the world under one 
head. He expresses the hope with which he turned 
from the distracted West to the Eastern regions of 
his empire, as those from which Divine light had 
first sprung. " But, oh ! divine and glorious Provi- 
dence, what wound has fallen on my ears — nay, 
rather on my heart !" And then, with an earnestness 
which it is difficult not to believe sincere, and with 
arguments which modern theologians have visited 
with the severest condemnation, but which the an- 
cient and Orthodox historian, Socrates, has not he- 
sitated to call " wonderful and full of wisdom;" 2 
he entreats the combatants " to abandon these futile 
and interminable disputes, and to return to the 
harmony which became their common faith." " Give 
me back my calm days, and my quiet nights; light 
and cheerfulness instead of tears and groans." He 
had come as far as Nicomedia, the capital of the 
East ; he entreats them to open for him the way to 
the East, and to enable him to see them and all 
rejoicing in restored freedom and unity. 3 His letter 
was in vain. The controversy had gone too far. The 
wound could be healed only by an extraordinary 
remedy. That remedy the Emperor was determined 
to provide. With the ardent desire for enforcing 
unanimity on those whom he was now called to 
govern, he combined a vague but profound rever- 

1 See Lecture VI. 

2 i. 8 : Qavfiaara kol aotpiag /lEara. None of the ancient his- 
torians condemn the letter. 

3 Eus. V. C. ii. 68—73. 



Lect. ill. Its Occasion. 101 

ence for the character and powers of the heads of 
the Christian community. From the union of these His idea 
two feelings sprang (as he himself tells us, "by a Council, 
divine inspiration") the first idea of convening a 
Council of the representatives of the whole Church. 
He may have been advised by the clergy 1 who were 
about him ; but he declares, and his declaration is con- 
firmed by history, that the main conception, under God, 
was due to himself only. And if the idea was his, still 
more exclusively so was its execution. Not till many 
years afterwards was the claim put forward, that 
Sylvester, Bishop of Eome, had combined with him in 
convening the assembly. 2 The little gatherings in 
each diocese, often hardly more in numbers than 
the meeting of the vestry of a large parish, had been 
called together in former times by the Bishops of the 
respective dioceses. But the gathering of the Bishops 
themselves, from all parts of the Empire, could be 
effected only by a central authority, which they all 
alike acknowledged; and in the beginning of the 
fourth century that authority could be found nowhere 
but in the Emperor. Complimentary letters, ac- 
cordingly, were addressed by him to all the Bishops. 
One of these has been preserved. It alludes to 
some similar intention (of which no other record 
exists) on the part of a small assembly of eighteen 
Bishops, which had met at Ancyra, in Galatia, nine 
years before, and then proceeds at once to name the 
place where the Council should meet. 3 

II. This leads us to ask what caused the selection The se- 
lection of 

of the locality. In General Councils, as in battles, the place. 

1 Kuf. i. 1. 2 See Mansi's Cone. ii. 637. 3 Anal. Nic. 21. 

h 3 



02 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. III. 



this has always been a very important question. Look 
at Trent. Its situation inimediately under the Alps, 
yet on the Italian side, exactly expresses the pecu- 
liarity of the assembly convened there. It was to be 
as near the dominions of the Emperor as was possible, 
without being altogether out of reach of the domi- 
nions of the Pope. It was to come as close to the 
confines of Protestantism as it could without crossing 
the barriers which parted it from them. Look at 
Pisa. It seems, so say those concerned in the event \ 
" as if the place was made for a council ; " a fertile 
plain, abounding in gardens and vineyards for pro- 
visions and wine; a river communicating with the 
sea, accessible to French, Italians, and Germans. 
Look at Constance. Here, again, was a frontier 
situation — a free city, therefore, to a certain extent, 
neutral between the contending parties — on the 
banks of a large lake, which would both furnish easy 
mode of access, and also assist in furnishing pro- 
visions for so great an assemblage, especially fish in 
time of Lent. A name, too, of happy omen — 
" Constantia,' ? which alone is said to have induced 
the Pope to consent to the locality. 

Not unlike to the motives which determined these 
sites of the great Western Councils, were those, as 
far as we can see, which determined the site of the 
chief Council of the East. One reason is expressly 
alleged by the Emperor himself — its healthy situa- 
tion. 2 The mortality which took place amongst the 
Bishops at Ephesus, the violent disputes which raged 



1 L'Enfant, Concile de Pise, ii. 26. 



2 Analecta Nic. 21. 



Lect. HI. 



Its Locality. 



amongst the medical authorities at Trent, as to the 
salubrity of the place, show the importance attached 
to this ground of selection. But there were also 
political and religious reasons. Constantinople was 
not yet founded ; by the time of the second Council, 
this, the capital of the Eastern Empire, was at once 
chosen for the gathering of the Eastern Church. 
But, although the precise locality of the capital was 
not yet fixed, yet its general atmosphere, so to speak, 
hung already over the shores of the Propontis. 
iUready this was the resort of the Eastern Cassars ; 
and Mcomedia, the ancient capital of Bithynia, 
only twenty miles from Nicaea, had, since the time of 
Diocletian, been chosen as the capital of the East. 
Nicomedia was probably rejected for two reasons. 
As in the case of Constance and Trent, a city not 
actually the seat of government would be more 
appropriate for the purpose of a sacred assembly. 
And again, considering the controversy at stake, it 
would hardly have been fitting to have held the 
meeting in Nicomedia, where the Bishop, Eusebius, 
had taken so active a part in defence of one of the 
combatants, and had already convoked a synod of 
Arian Bishops 1 in the neighbourhood. The second 
capital of Bithynia, therefore, Nicasa, naturally pre- 
sented itself ; its lake furnished means of access 
from the Propontis, and it was sufficiently near the 
Imperial residence. " The Bishops of Italy, and from 
the rest of the countries of Europe, are coming " — 
these are the Emperor's own words — "and I shall be at 

1 Soz. i. 15. 



io4 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. III. 

hand, as a spectator and participator in what is done." 1 
Finally, the name, as afterwards in the case of Con- 
stance, was highly important. It was " Nicaea," the 
city of " victory," or " conquest." Its coins bore a 
figure of Victory. This fell in with Const antine's 
favourite title and watchword. 2 He was just fresh 
from the victory over his second rival, which caused 
him to assume the surname of Mketes — the Victor, 
or the Conqueror. The motto seen, or alleged to be 
seen, in the apparition of the cross before his earlier 
victory, was the same word, sv toutlo vlxa — " By this 
conquer;" and Eusebius specially dwells on the strains 
of conquest 3 and victory, which harmonised with 
the name of the place, and regards the Council itself 
as a thank-offering for the victory just gained by the 
Emperor over all his enemies. 4 " It was a city," he 
says, " fitting for the synod — called after Victory, 
' the City of Victory,' or < Mcasa.' " 5 
Time of HI. We are thus brought to the next point in con- 

the Coun- . f . . 

cii. nection with the convention of the Council, its date. 

The year of Christ 325 was the twentieth year of 
the reign of Constantine, reckoning from the 25th of 
July 306, when he had been proclaimed at York. 
Every tenth year of an Imperial reign was celebrated 
with solemn games and festivities, in recollection of 



1 Analecta Nic. 21. 2 See Lecture VI. 

3 V. C. iv. 47 : i) avpodog ett iv'lk Log rjv . . . kici ttjv kclt kyBptov 
Ka\ 7ro\efxi(i)v vikijv eirl Trjg Nicaiae avrrjg kiTLreKovaa. Compare 
Eus. Laud. Const, v. 18. 

4 V. C. iii. 7 : rw avrov aiorijpL rrjg /car' e^dpuiv kcil 7ro\£/xiW 
v'tK-qg deo7rp£7TE~ig avertdeL ^apiar^pLOv. 

5 V. C. iii. 6 : viK-qg E-n-ww/uLog, ?/ Niratct. 



Lect. III. 



Its Time. 



105 



tjie original conditions under which Augustus ac- 
cepted the Imperial power, namely, that it should 
be renewed at the end of every ten years. 1 " The 
memory of this comedy," says Gibbon, " was pre- 
served to the latest ages of the empire;" and, in the 
case of Constantine, it was characteristically blended 
with the events following his conversion. Of the 
Decennalia, or celebration of his tenth year, we have 
no account. But the Tricennalia, or thirtieth year, 
was marked by the dedication of the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem 2 ; and the Yicennalia, or 
twentieth year, was expressly chosen as the time in 
which the solemnities of the first (Ecumenical Council 
might act the part usually played by mere pomp and 
festivity. 3 And if under any circumstances this 
would have been appropriate, much more so was it 
in the peculiar conjuncture of this anniversary. It 
was little more than a year since Constantine, by the 
victory over Licinius to which I have just referred, 
became Emperor of the East as well as of the West. 
An Eastern Council would, in fact, have been almost 
impossible before this time, and accordingly the Arian 
controversy was of necessity allowed to roll on, un- 
checked, for five years, till the restoration of peace 
and the close of the civil war enabled the Emperor to 
turn his attention to the subject, and to make his last 
attempt to heal it. The year of the meeting of the 
Council, therefore, of itself indicates the state of the 
world at large. In place and time alike, it marks 



1 Dio Cass. iii. 16. 2 Eus. V. C. iv. 47. 

3 Eus. V. C. iv. 47 ; Soz. H. E. i. 25. 



io6 The Council of Nicasa. Lect. III. 



the final victory of Constantino over his enemies, the 
settlement of the Eastern Empire, and the connection 
of that Empire with the fortunes of the Eastern 
Church. 

The actual month and day of the meeting are 
more difficult to ascertain. The date of the opening 
varies from May 20 to May 29, June 14, and June 
19. It is enough for our purpose to know that it 
took place somewhere near Whitsuntide, at the begin- 
ning of the summer. This was the usual time of the 
gathering of the Eastern Councils 1 , and was probably 
fixed with a view to the reopening of the navigation 
of the Mediterranean, when the winter storms were 
over and the warm weather rendered travelling easy. 
In this instance the time would be further narrowed by 
the desire of the Emperor to combine it with the 
25th of July, the anniversary of his accession, with 
which, as we shall see, the formal proceedings of the 
Council were closed, though the members appear not 
to have dispersed till the 25th of August. 2 
Arrival iy. It was, then, at such a time and to such a 

of the .... 

Bishops, place, with the feelings inspired by such a conjunc- 
ture as I have described, that, in the close of May or 
beginning of June, Nicasa was approached by the re- 
presentatives of the Christian Church from every 

1 The Greeks call the Sunday after Ascension Day a The Sun- 
day of the Holy Fathers," or of the "318 Theophori at Nica3a." 
Heinicher on Eus. V. C. iii. 15. Smith, De Ecciesige Graecse 
hodierno Statu, p. 76. The Syrians celebrate it on July 1 ; the 
Armenians on Sept. 7 ; the Egyptians on Nov. 5. See Lecture V. 

2 Alexander (of Byzantium?) describes it as ending in Septem- 
ber (Photius, Bib. 473) ; according to the later Greek traditions 
it lasted three (Phot. Bib. 473) or six years (ib. 66). See Beve- 
ridge's Synodicon, ii. 42. 



Lect. III. 



Its Gathering. 



107 



part of the Eastern Empire, and from a few spots of 
the Western also. The mode of their travelling must 
be observed, not only as characteristic of the manners 
of the time, but as decisive of the authority by which 
they were summoned. 

Letters were addressed, doubtless on this as on a 
previous lesser occasion in the West, to the civil au- 
thorities, enjoining the supplies necessary for the 
journey. The posting arrangements of the Empire 
made such a convention far more easy than would 
have been the case at any period in the middle ages. 
The great lines of communication were like railroads, 
straight as arrows, from one extremity of the Empire 
to the other. From Bordeaux to Constantinople, a 
few years later, we have the record of two hundred 
post stations ([xovai) and ninety-one inns; an inn at 
the interval of every half-day's journey. 1 Each 
Bishop was to have two presbyters and three slaves 2 as 
his retinue. They travelled partly in public carriages 3 , 
partly on horses, asses, and mules, provided for the 
purpose, both for riding and carrying baggage. 4 The 
precedent thus established was never dropped, and 
the summoning of a Council was always known 
throughout the Empire by the stir along the roads in 
every direction. At later Councils we hear of the 
indecent haste with which Bishops might be seen 5 

1 Itin. Burd. p. 548. See Newman's notes on Ath. Hist. Tracts, 
ii. 50. 

2 Eus. H. E. x. 8. 

3 Eus. H. E. x. 5 : Iri^xoffiov o^qjia. V. C. iii. 6 : liijioaioQ 
dpofxog. 

4 Theod. H. E. i. 6 : opevai koi ovoiq kcu rjfjiiovoiQ koX 'lttttoiq. 

5 Ammian. xxi. 16. 



io8 



The Council of Nicsea. 



Lect. III. 



galloping at full speed to reach the appointed place in 
time, — the horses knocked up by their impatience, — 
or at times detained, as would not unfrequently 
happen at the end of an Eastern spring, by the flood- 
ing of rivers. 1 

Their This (varied no doubt by the arrival in vessels 

across the Ascanian Lake) must have been the gene- 
ral aspect of the gathering of the Council of Mcsea. 
They came, says Eusebius, as fast as they could 
run, in almost a frenzy of excitement and enthusiasm. 2 
The actual crowd must have been enough to have 
metamorphosed the place. It was indeed a number 
far below the enormous crowds which beset the later 
Councils. At Nicsea the highest calculation, in the 
distorted accounts of later times, fixes the number at 
more than 2000. 3 This, if we include all the presbyters 
and attendants, is probably correct. The actual num- 
ber of Bishops, variously stated in the earlier autho- 
rities as 218 4 , 250 5 , 270 6 , or 300 7 , was finally believed 
to have been 320 or 318 8 , and this in the Eastern 
Church has so completely been identified with the 
event that the Council is often known as that of 
"the 318." It is a proof of the importance of the 

1 As at the Council of Ephesus. (Robertson, i. 445.) 

2 V. C. iii. 6 : oia tlvoq airb rvcrarjQ tdeov ol 7ravTeg kv TrpoQvfi'ia 
iracr}. 

3 2340 (Macrizi, 31); 2843 (Mansi, ii. p. 1073; Eutychius, 
Ann. i. 440). 

4 Anal. Nic. 34. 5 Eus. V. C. iii. 8. 

6 Eustathius (apud Theod. i. 8.), who, however, adds that he 
had not examined the matter closely. 

7 Athan. Hist. Monach. c. 66 ; Apol. c. Arian. c. 23, 25 ; De 
Synod, c. 43. 

s Athan. ad Afr. c. 2 ; Soc. i. 8 ; Soz. i. 17; (320) Theod. i. 7. 



Lect. nr. 



Its Gathering. 



event, that even so trivial a circumstance as the 
number should be made the groundwork of more 
than one mystical legend. In the Greek numerals it 
was T I H; i. e. T for the cross, I H, for the sacred 
name'I^o-ot^. 1 It was 2 also supposed that this number 
was prefigured in the 318 slaves of Abraham. It 
became the foundation of seeking mystical numbers 
for the later Councils. The greatest of all the Eastern 
Councils, in numbers and dignity, that of Chalcedon, 
prided itself on being just double that of Nicaea, 636. 
The Council of Constantinople, which deposed Igna- 
tius and exalted Photius in the ninth century, prided 
itself on being exactly the same number, 318. The 
Alexandrians, after two Arabian historians, giving the 
sum total of the Council as 2348, represent the mob 
as the grand gathering of all the heretics of the 
world, Sabellians, Mariolaters, Arians, — and that the 
318 were the Orthodox and steadfast minority. Two 
still stranger stories in connection with the number 
will appear as we proceed. 4 

But it was the diversity of the persons, and the Diversity 
strongly marked characters dividing each from each, ractera. 
which, more than any mere display of numbers, con- 
stituted their peculiar interest. In the conventional 
pictures of the Council, such, for example, as that 
which still exists at Nicsea, the figures are almost 
indistinguishable from each other, with the excep- 
tion of the small knot of Arians, who are represented 
as grouped together in the centre, bearing the marks 
of their discomfiture in their looks of extreme 



1 Ambrose, De Fide, i. 18. 

3 Macrizi, 31 ; Etitychius, Ann. i. 440. 



2 Ibid. i. 1. 

4 Lecture V. 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. III. 



disgust, and the sign of their heresy in the coal- 
black colour of their complexions. But this was 
far from being the true aspect of the assembly as 
it was first seen, before the theological differences 
had been fully developed, and whilst the natural 
differences were the most prominent. Eusebius, 
himself an eyewitness, as he enumerates the various 
characters, from various countries, of various age 
and position, thus collected, compares the scene 
either with the diverse nations 1 assembled at Pen- 
tecost, or with a garland of flowers gathered in season, 
of all irianner of colours, woven together as a peace 
offering after the tranquillisation of the Empire 2 ; or 
with a mystic dance, in which every actor performs 
a part of his own 3 , to complete a sacred ceremony. 
There were present, the learned and the illiterate, 
courtiers and peasants, old and young, aged bishops 
on the verge of the grave, beardless deacons just 
entering on their office 4 ; and it was an assembly in 
which the difference between age and youth was of 
more than ordinary significance ; for it coincided with 
a marked transition in the history of the world. The 
new generation had been brought up in peace and 
quiet. They could just remember the joy diffused 
through the Christian communities by the edict of 
toleration published in their boyhood; but they had 
themselves suffered nothing. Not so the older, and 
by far the larger part of the assembly. They had 
lived through the last and worst of the persecutions, 
and they now came like a regiment out of some 



i Y. C. iii. 7. 
3 Ibid. iii. 8, 9. 



2 Ibid. iii. 7. 
4 Ibid. iii. 8. 



Lect. III. 



Its Gathering. 



1 1 1 



frightful siege or battle, decimated and mutilated by 
the tortures or the hardships they had undergone. 
There must have been some of the aged inhabitants 
of Mca^a who remembered the death 1 of the two 
martyrs, Tryphon and Respicius, who, in the reign 
of Decius, had been dragged through the streets of 
the city, bleeding from their wounds, in the depth of 
.winter. There must be some who retained from their 
grandfathers the recollection of that still earlier and 
more celebrated persecution in Bithynia, recorded by 
Pliny in his letters to Trajan. Most of the older 
members must have lost a friend or a brother. Many 
still bore the marks of their sufferings. Some un- 
covered their sides and backs to show the wounds 
inflicted by the instruments of torture. On others 
were the traces of that peculiar cruelty which distin- 
guished the last persecution, the loss of a right eye, 
or the searing of the sinews of the leg 2 , to prevent their 
escape from working in the mines. 3 Both at the time 
and afterwards, it was on their character as an army 
of confessors and martyrs 4 , quite as much as on their 
character as an (Ecumenical Council that their autho- 
rity reposed. In this respect no other Council could 
approach them, and, in the whole proceedings of the 
assembly, the voice of an old confessor was received 
almost as an oracle. 

They assembled in the first instance in one of the First 
chief buildings of Nicaea, apparently for the purpose meeting, 
of a thanksgiving and a religious reunion. Whether it 
was an actual church may be questioned. Christians, 



1 See Tillemont, iii. 33. 
3 Chiysostom, i. 609. 



2 Eus. H. E. viii. 12. 
4 Chrysostom, i. 609. 



ii2 The Council of Nicasa, Lect. III. 



no doubt, there had been in Bithynia for some gene- 
rations. Already in the second century Pliny had 
found them in such numbers that the temples were 
deserted, and the sacrifices neglected. But it would 
seem that on this occasion a secular building was 
fitted up as a temporary house of prayer. At least 
the traditional account of the place where their con- 
cluding prayers were held exactly agrees with Strabo's 
account of the ancient gymnasium of Nicsea. It was 
a large building, shaped like a basilica, with an apse 
at one end, planted in the centre of the town, and 
thus commanding down each of the four streets a 
view of the four gates, and therefore called " Mes om- 
phalos," the " Navel " of the city. 1 Whether, how- 
ever, this edifice actually was a church or not, its use 
as such on this occasion served as a precedent for 
most of the later Councils. From the time of the 
Council of Chalcedon, they have usually been held 
within the walls of churches. But for this, the first 
Council, the church, so far as it was a church, was 
only used at the beginning and the end. 

After these thanksgivings were over, the members 
of the assembly must have been collected according 
to the divisions which shall now be described. 
Deputies 1. The groupe which, above the rest, attracts 
Egyptian our attention, is the deputation from the Church of 
Egypt. Shrill above all other voices, vehement above 
all other disputants, "brandishing," as it was de- 
scribed by one who knew them well 2 , "their arguments, 

1 See Strabo (xii. 565) ; and Gregory the Presbyter, De Patr. 
Nic. Cone, as quoted in Mansi, ii. 727. 

2 Theod. i. 6. 



Lect. III. The Egyptian Deputies. 



" like spears, against those who sate under the same 
" roof, and ate off the same table as themselves," were 
the combatants from Alexandria, who had brought 
to its present pass the question which the Council 
was called to decide. Foremost in that groupe in Alexander 
dignity, though not in importance or in energy, was Aiexan- f 
the aged Alexander, whose imprudent sermon had dua ' 
provoked the quarrel, and whose subsequent vacil- 
lation had encouraged it. He was the Bishop, not 
indeed of the first, but of the most learned, see of 
Christendom. He was known by a title which he alone 
officially bore in that assembly. He was " the Pope." 
"The Pope of Rome" was a phrase which had not 
yet emerged in history. But " Pope of Alexandria " 
was a well-known dignity. Papa, that strange and 
universal mixture of familiar endearment and of re- 
verential awe, extended in a general sense to all 
Greek Presbyters and all Latin Bishops, was the 
special address which, long before the names of pa- 
triarch or of archbishop, was given to the head of 
the Alexandrian Church. 1 

1 This peculiar Alexandrian application of a name, in itself 
expressing simple affection, is thus explained : — Down to Heraclas 
(a. d. 230), the Bishop of Alexandria, being the sole Egyptian 
bishop, was called "Abba" (father), and his clergy "Elders." 
From his time more bishops were created, who then received the 
name of " abba," and consequently the name of "Papa" (ab-aba, 
pater patrum = grandfather) was appropriated to the Primate. 
The Roman account (inconsistent with facts) is that the name 
was first given to Cyril, as representing the Bishop of Rome in the 
Council of Ephesus (Suicer, in voce). The name was fixed to 
the Bishop of Rome in the 7th century. It has been fantasti- 
cally explained as: — 1. Poppcea, from the short life of each pope. 
2. Pa, for Pater. 3. Pap, suck. 4. Pap, breast. 5. Pa (Paul) Pe 
(Peter). 6. 7ra7ra7 ! (admiration). 7. Papos, "keeper" (Oscau). 8. 

VOL. I. I 



ii 4 



The Council of INicaea. 



Lect. III. 



In the Patriarchal Treasury at Moscow is a very 
ancient scarf, or " omophorion," said to have been 
given by the Bishop of Nicaea in the seventeenth 
century to the Czar Alexis, and to have been left to 
the Church of Mcsea by Alexander of Alexandria. 
' It is white, and is rudely worked with a representa- 
tion of the Ascension ; possibly in allusion to the 
first Sunday of their meeting. This relic, true or 
false, is the nearest approach we can now make to 
the bodily presence of the old theologian. The shadow 
of death is already upon him; in a few months he 
will be beyond the reach of controversy. 
Athana- But close 1 beside the Pope Alexander is a small in- 
significant 2 young man, of hardly twenty -five years of 
age, of lively manners 3 and speech, and of bright, 
serene countenance. Though he is but the Deacon, 
the chief Deacon 4 , or Archdeacon, of Alexander, he 
has closely riveted the attention of the assembly by 
the vehemence of his arguments. He is already taking 
the words out of the Bishop's mouth, and briefly 
acting in reality the part he had before, as a child 5 , 
acted in name, and that, in a few months, he will be 
called to act both in name and in reality. His 
humble rank as a Deacon does not allow of his ap- 
pearance in the conventional pictures of the Council. 
But his activity and prominence 6 behind the scenes 

Pappas, chief slave). 9. P«(ter) Pa(trisd). 10. Pa, sound of a 
father's kiss. See Abraham Echellensis, De Origine Nom. Pa- 
pas, 60. 

1 Gelas. ii. 7 ; Theod. i. 26. ; Soc. i. 8. 

2 Julian, Ep. 51. 3 Greg. Naz. Or. 219. 
4 See Lecture VII. 5 See Lecture VI. 

6 Ath. Apol. c. Ar. 6; Soz. i. 17. 



Lect. III. The Egyptian Deputies. 



115 



made enemies for him there, who will never leave 
him through life. Any one who has read his pas- 
sionate invectives afterwards may form some notion 
of what he was when in the thick of his youthful 
battles. That small insignificant Deacon is the great 
Athanasius. 

Next after the Pope and Deacon of Alexandria, we 
must turn to one of its most important Presbyters — ■ 
the parish priest, as we should call him, according to 
the first beginnings of a parochial system organised 
at Alexandria, the incumbent of the parish church 
of Baucalis. 1 In appearance he is the very opposite 
of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall 
and thin, and apparently unable to support his 
stature ; he has an odd way of contorting and 
twisting himself, which his enemies compare to the 
wriggiings of a snake. 2 He would be handsome but 
for the emaciation and deadly pallor of his face, and 
a downcast look, imparted by a weakness of eye- 
sight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his 
limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent 
internal complaint — the same, perhaps, that will 
terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. 
There is a wild look about him, which at first sight 
is startling. His dress and demeanour are those of 

1 It was the earliest church in Alexandria. It contained the 
tomb of S. Mark, and in it took place the election of the Patriarch. 
It stood near the sea shore, on a spot which derived its name 
(Boucalia) from the pasturage of cattle. (Neale's Hist, of the Alex. 
Church, i. 7, 9.) Another origin of the name is given in Niceph. 
H. E. viii. 5. 

2 This description is put together from the two different, but 
not irreconcilable, accounts of Epiphanius (lxix. 3), and the letter 
ascribed to Constantine in Gelasius, iii. 1. (Mansi, ii. 930.) 

1 2 



n6 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. III. 



Arius. a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short 
sleeves 1 , and a scarf of only half size, such as was the 
mark of an austere life; and his hair hangs in a 
tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, but 
at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as will 
give the impression of madness. Yet, with all this, 
there is a sweetness in his voice, and a winning, 
earnest manner, which fascinates those who come 
across him. Amongst the religious ladies of Alex- 
andria he is said to have had from the first a fol- 
lowing of not less than seven hundred. This strange, 
captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic Arius 
— or, as his adversaries called him, the madman 
of Ares, or Mars. 2 Close beside him was a groupe 
of his countrymen, of whom we know little, except 
their fidelity to him, through good report and evil : 
Saras, like himself a presbyter, from the Libyan 
province ; Euzoius, a deacon of Egypt ; Achillas, 
a reader ; 3 Theonas, Bishop of Marmarica in the 
Cyrenaica, and Secundus, Bishop of Ptolemais in 
the Delta. 4 

These were the most remarkable deputies from the 
Coptic Church of Alexandria. But from the interior of 
ermit.. Egypt came characters of quite another stamp; not 
Greeks, nor Grecised Egyptians, but genuine Copts 5 , 
speaking the Greek language not at all, or with great 
difficulty; living half or the whole of their lives 

1 The monks wore no sleeves, to indicate that their hands were 
not to be employed in injury. Soz. H. E. iii. 14. 

2 'ApeijuavrjQ, in later Greek, was a phrase for war frenzy. 

3 For these three names see Jerome Adv Lucif. ii. 192. 

4 Theod. i. 7. 

5 Antony could not speak Greek. Soz. i. 13. 



Lect. 111. 



The Syrian Deputies. 



117 



in the desert; their very names taken from the old 
heathen gods of the times of the ancient Pharaohs. 
One was Pot amnion, Bishop of Heracleopolis, far up p 0 tam. 
the Nile; the other, Paphnutius, Bishop of the mon * 
Upper Thebaid. Both are famous for the austerity 
of their lives. Potammon 1 (that is, " dedicated to 
Amnion") had himself visited the hermit Antony; 
Paphnutius (that is, "dedicated to his God") had Paphnu- 
been brought up in a hermitage. 2 Both, too, had tms ' 
suffered in the persecutions. Each presented the 
frightful spectacle of the right eye dug out with the 
sword, and the empty socket seared with a redhot 
iron. Paphnutius, besides, came limping on one 
leg, his left having been hamstrung. 3 

2. Next in importance must be reckoned the Deputies 
Bishops of Syria and of the interior of Asia; or, churchof 
as they are sometimes called in the later Coun- Syna " 
cils, the Eastern Bishops, as distinguished from the 
Church of Egypt. Then, as afterwards, there was 
a rivalry between those branches of Oriental Christen- 
dom ; each, from long neighbourhood, knowing each, 
yet each tending in an opposite direction, till, after 
the Council of Chalcedon, a community of heresy 
drew them together again. Here, as in Egypt, we 
find two classes of representatives — scholars from the 
more civilised cities of Syria; wild ascetics from 
the remoter East. The first in dignity was the Eustathms 
orthodox Eustathius, who either was, or was on the 

1 Three of that name were at Sardica. (Ath. Apol. e. Ar. 50.) 

2 kv cKTKtjrrjpiu). The same word that in the Russian Church is 
abridged into sheet. See Lecture XI. 

3 Rufin. i. 4 : " Sinistro poplite succiso." For his eye see 
Soc. i. 11. 

1 3 



u8 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. III. 



point of being made Bishop of the capital of Syria, 
the metropolis of the Eastern Church, Antioch, then 
called " the city of God/' He had suffered in heathen 
persecutions, and was destined to suffer in Christian 
persecutions also. 2 But he was chiefly known for his 
learning and eloquence, which was distinguished by 
an antique simplicity of style. One work alone has 
come down to us, on the " Witch of Endor." 
Eusebius of Next in rank, and far more illustrious, was his 
chief suffragan the metropolitan of Palestine, the 
Bishop of Cassarea, Eusebius the son of Pamphilus. 
We honour him as the father of ecclesiastical history 
— as the chief depositary of the traditions which con- 
nect the fourth with the first century. But in the 
Bishops at Nicaea his presence awakened feelings 
of a very different kind. He alone of the Eastern 
Prelates could tell what was in the mind of the 
Emperor; he was the clerk of the Imperial closet; 
he was the interpreter, the chaplain, the confessor 
of Constantine. And yet he was on the wrong side. 
Two especially, we may be sure, of the Egyptian 
Church, were on the watch for any slip that he might 
make. Athanasius (whatever may have been the 
opinions of later times respecting the doctrines of 
Eusebius) was convinced that he was at heart an 
Arian. 3 Potammon of the one eye had known him 
formerly in the days of persecution, and was ready 
with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later occasion, 
he threw out against him, that, whilst he had thus 

1 The very intricate question of the date of Eustathius's appoint- 
ment to Antioch is well discussed in Tillemont, vii. 646. It seems 
most probable that he was appointed just at this crisis. 

2 Soz. ii. 19. 3 De Syn. c. 17, 



Lect. III. The Mesopotamian Deputies. u 9 

suffered for the cause of Christ, Eusebius 1 had escaped 
by sacrificing to an idol. 

If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was 
supported by most of his suffragan bishops in Pales- 
tine, of whom Paulinus of Tyre 2 , and Patrophilus of 
Bethshan (Scythopolis), were the most remarkable. 
One, however, a champion of Orthodoxy, was distin- Macarius 
guished, not in himself, but for the see which he l^ 6 ™ 84 " 
occupied — once the highest in Christendom, in a 
few years about to claim something of its former 
grandeur, but at the time of the Council known only 
as a second-rate Syro-Koman city — Macarius, Bishop 
of iElia Capitolina, that is, " Jerusalem." 

From Neocaesarea, a border fortress on the Eu- p au i of 
phrates 3 , came its confessor Bishop, Paul, who, like ^eaT" 
Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the per- 
secutions, but more recently, under Licinius. His 
hands were paralysed by the scorching of the muscles 
of all the fingers with redhot iron. Along with him 
were the Orthodox representatives of four famous 
Churches, who, according to the Armenian tradi- 
tion, travelled in company. 4 Their leader was the James of 
marvel, " the Moses " as he was termed, of Meso- Nlslbls ' 
potamia, James, or Jacob, Bishop of Nisibis. 5 He 
had lived for years as a hermit on the moun- 
tains ; in the forests during the summer, in caverns 

1 Epiph. cxviii. 7. ; Ath. Apol. 8. 

2 Theod. i. 4, 7. 3 Theod. i. 6. 

4 Moses Clioren. ii. 87. To these must be added Maruthas, 
Bishop of Tagrit, namesake of the future historian of the 
Council. (Assem. Bibl. Or. i. 195.) See p. 93. 

5 Theod. Philoth. iii. 11 — 14: ola rig apiarsvg Kal Trpofxa-^og 
arcaarig QaXayyog. See Biblioth. Patrum, v. p. clviii. 



120 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. III. 



during the winter: browsing on roots and leaves 
like a wild beast, and like a wild beast clothed in 
a rough goat-hair cloak. This dress and manner 
of life, even after he became bishop, he never laid 
aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence 
inspired was increased by the stories of miraculous 
power, which, we are told, he exercised in a manner 
as humane and playful as it was grotesque ; as when 
he turned the washerwomen's hair white, detected 
the impostor who pretended to be dead, and raised 
an army of gnats against the Persians. His fame 
as a theologian rests on disputed writings. 1 

The second was Ait-allaha (" the brought of God," 
like the Greek " Theophorus "), who had just occu- 
pied the see of Edessa, and finished the building of 
•the cemetery of his cathedral. 2 

The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of 
Jacob of Msibis and son of Gregory the Illuminator, 
founder of the Armenian Church. 3 He represented 
both his father the Bishop, and Tiridates the King, 
of Armenia ; the Bishop and King having received 
a special invitation from Constantine 4 , and sent 
their written professions of faith by the hands of 
Aristaces. 

The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the 
sole representative of the more distant East. " John 

1 Theod. Philoth. in. 1108— 1116; Bibl. Patr. v. iii. — clii. 

2 Chronicon Edess. ap. Asseraanni Biblioth. Or. i. 394. His 
name is written Ettilaus, JEtholaus, JEtolus, in the Nicene sub- 
scriptions, and Authalius in Moses Choren. ii. 87. Rabalas, 
Chronicle of Anirou, Asseman. iii. 588. 

3 See Le Quien, Oriens Christ, ii. 1251 ; Bibl. Patr. v. cliii. 

4 Moses Choren. ii. 86. 



Lect. ill. Deputies of Asia Minor and Greece. 121 



the Persian," who added to his name the more sound- 
ing title, — here appearing for the first time, but re- 
vived in our own days as the designation of our own 
Bishops of Calcutta, — " Metropolitan of India." 1 

A curious tradition related that this band, including 
eleven other obscure names from the remote East, 
were the only members of the Mcene Council who 
had not sustained some bodily mutilation or injury. 2 

3. As this little band advanced westward, they Deputies 
encountered a remarkable personage, who stands Church of 
at the head of the next groupe which we meet — Minor, 
the Prelates of Asia Minor and Greece. This Was Leontius of 
Leontius of Csesarea in Cappadocia. From his Ca3sarea> 
hands, it was said, Gregory of Armenia had received 
ordination, and from his successors in the see of 
Csesarea had desired that every succeeding Bishop 
of Armenia should receive ordination likewise. 3 For 
this reason, it may be, Aristaces and his company 
sought him out. They found Leontius already on 
his journey, and they overtook him at a critical 
moment. 4 He was on the point of baptizing another 
Gregory, father of a much more celebrated Gregory, 
the future Bishop of Nazianzum. A light, it was 
believed, shone from the water, which was only dis- 
cerned by the sacred travellers. 

Leontius was claimed by the Arians, but still more 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 7 : 77 £17 £e /ecu Uspffijg kKiGKOTrog ovvolu) iraprfv. In 
Gelas. Cyz. called John. In the Coptic version (Spicil. Solesm. 
533) he is made the Bishop of Persis, a city in [Mesopotamia. 
(See Spicil. Solesm. 533.) Has his name, thus emphatically 
stated, any connexion with Prester John ? 

2 Acta SS. Jan. 13, 781. 3 Moses Choren. ii. 87. 
4 Greg. Naz. Or. xviii. c. 12, 13. 



i 22 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. III. 



decidedly by tlie Orthodox. 1 Others, of the same 
side, are usually named as from the same region, 
amongst them Hypatius of Gangra, whose end we 
shall witness at the close of these events, and Her- 
mogenes the deacon, afterwards Bishop of Cassarea, 
who acted as secretary of the Council. 
Eusebius of Eusebius of Mcomedia, afterwards of Constan- 
icome m. ^^^^ Theognis of Mcaaa 2 , Maris of Chalcedon, and 
Menophantus of Ephesus, were amongst the most re- 
solute defenders of Arius. It is curious to reflect 
that they represent the four sees of the four Or- 
thodox Councils of the Church. The three last 
named soon vanish away from history. But Euse- 
bius of Nicomed ia, friend, namesake, perhaps even 
brother of the Bishop of Cassarea, was a personage 
of high importance both then and afterwards. As 
Athanasius was called " the great " by the Ortho- 
dox, so was Eusebius by the Arians. 3 Even mira- 
cles were ascribed to him. 4 Originally Bishop of 
Beyruth (Berytus), he had been translated 5 to the see 
of Nicomedia, then the capital of the Eastern Empire. 
He had been a favourite of the Emperor's rival 
Licinius 6 , and had thus become intimate with Con- 
stantia, the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the widow 
of Licinius. Through her and through his own dis- 
tant relationship with the Imperial family, he kept a 
hold on the court which he never lost, even to the 

1 Ath. ad Episc. JEg. c. 8 ; Philostorgius, i. 9. 

2 Theod. i. 11. He says: Qeoyviog NtKaiag a 1/7-77 £ ETricncoirog. 

3 Philostorg. Fragm. i. 9. 

4 See Neale's Alexandrian Church, i. 123. 

5 Theod. i. 19. 

6 Athan. Apc-1. c. Arian. 6 ; Ammian. Marcell. xxii. 9, 4. 



Lect. ill. The Deputies of Asia Minor. 123 



moment when he stood by the dying bed of the Em- 
peror, years afterwards, and received him into the 
Church. We must not be too hard on the Chris- 
tianity of Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate the bap- 
tism of Constantine. 1 

Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the Alexander 
East would be the representative of what was now a tium. 
small Greek town, but in five years from that time 
would supersede altogether the glories of Nicome- 
dia. Metrophanes 2 , Bishop of Byzantium, was detained 
by old age and sickness, but Alexander, his presbyter, 
himself seventy years of age, was there with a little 
secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve 
years old, one of the readers and collectors of the 
Byzantine Church. 3 Alexander had already corre- 
sponded with his namesake of Alexandria on the 
Arian controversy 4 , and was apparently attached 
firmly to the Orthodox side. 

Besides their more regular champions, the Or- 
thodox party of Greece and Asia Minor had a 
few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the Acesius, 
Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine tian^°* a " 
from Byzantium with Alexander, from the great 
respect entertained by the Emperor for his ascetic 
character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, 
who lived to a great age afterwards as a presbyter 
in the same sect. 5 This child was then living with 
a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neigh- 
bouring mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he 

1 See Lecture VI. 2 Photius, Biblioth. 471. 

3 Photius, Biblioth. 471. 4 Neale, i. 130. 

5 Soc. i. 13. 



I2 4 



The Council of Nieasa. Lect. III. 



descended from these solitudes to attend upon 
Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the 
most curious details of the Council. 
Marceiius Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was, amongst the 
of Ancyra. j^^op^ ^ e £ erce st opponent of Arius, and when the 
active deacon of Alexandria was not present, seems to 
have borne the brunt of the arguments. 1 Yet, if we 
may judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius 
could never have been quite at ease in leaving the cause 
in his hands. He was one of those awkward theolo- 
gians who never could attack Arianism without falling 
into Sabellianism ; and in later life he was twice de- 
posed from his see for heresy, once excommunicated 
by Athanasius himself; and in the present form of 
the Mcene Creed one clause (that which asserts that 
"the kingdom of Christ shall have no end ") is said 
to have been expressly aimed at his exaggerated 
language. 2 

And now come two, of whom the one probably left 
the deepest impression on his contemporaries, and the 
other, if he were present at all, on the subsequent 
Spyridion traditions of the Council. From the island of Cyprus 
of Cy pi us. ^ ere arr j_ ve( j ^ e q]^ shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd 

both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. 
Strange stories were told by his fellow islanders to 
the historian Socrates of the thieves who were mira- 
culously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and 
of Spyridion' s good-humoured reply when he found 
them in the morning, and gave them a ram that they 
might not have sat up all night for nothing. Another 

1 Ath. Apol. c. Ar. §§ 23, 32. 

2 Ibid, de Syn. §§ 24, 26. 



Lect. III. The Deputies from Greece. 125 



tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman 
legends which hang about the sacred places of Jeru- 
salem, told how he had gained an answer from his 
dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit 
was hidden. 1 Two less marvellous, but more instruc- 
tive, stories bring out the simplicity of his character. 
He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for al- 
tering, in a quotation from the Gospels, the homely 
word for "bed" into "couch." — "What! are you 
" better than He who said 'bed,' 2 that you are ashamed 
" to use His words ? " On occasion of a wayworn tra- 
veller coming to him in Lent, finding no other food 
in the house, he presented him with salted pork, and 
on the stranger's declining, saying that he could not 
as a Christian break his fast, — -"So much the less 
"reason," he said, "have you for scruple; to the 
" pure, all things are pure." 3 

These wonderful powers were exerted, it was re- 
ported, actually on his journey to the Council. One 
night, he, with a cavalcade of Orthodox Bishops, ar- 
rived at a caravanserai, where, as it so chanced, a 
party of Arians were assembled also on their way to 
Mcasa. The Arians determined to seize this oppor- 
tunity of intercepting the further progress of so formid- 
able an accession to their rivals. Accordingly, in the 
dead of night, they cut off the heads of all the horses 
belonging to Spyridion and his companions. When, as 
is the custom in Oriental journeying, the travellers rose 
to start before break of day, the Orthodox Bishops were 

1 Ruf. i. 5 ; compare " Sinai and Palestine," p. 179. 

2 Kpafifiarov altered into crKt^-ovQ. Soz. i. 11. 

3 See Tillemont, vi. 688—606. 



126 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. III. 



dismayed at the discovery of what had befallen their 
steeds. A word from Spyridion, however, was suffi- 
cient to rectify the difficulty. He replaced the de- 
capitated heads, and his party proceeded on their 
journey. When day broke they found that the 
miracle, performed in the dark and in haste, had 
restored the heads at random : black heads to white 
shoulders, white heads to black shoulders; in short 
a caravan of piebald horses. 1 

Many more stories might be told of him, but (to 
use the words of an ancient writer who has related 
some of them), " from the claws you can make out 
the lion." 2 Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be 
said that in a certain curious sense he is the only one 
who has survived the decay of time. After resting 
for many years in his native Cyprus, his body was 
transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till 
the capture by the Turks. It was thence conveyed 
to Corfu, where it is still preserved in the cathedral 
of that island. Hence, by a strange resuscitation of 
fame, he has become the patron saint, one might 
almost say the Divinity, of the Ionian islands. Once 
a year in solemn procession he is carried round the 
streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfiotes bear his 
name, now abridged into the familiar diminutive of 
" Spiro." The superstitious veneration entertained 
for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel 
between the English residents and the native 
lonians. But the historian may be pardoned for 
gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, 

1 This, I am told, is the legend in Corfu. 

2 Photius, Biblioth. 471. 



Lect. III. The Deputies from the West. 127 

now black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of 
Nicsea. 

Still more famous (and still more apocryphal, at Nicolas of 
least in his attendance at Nicsea,) is Nicolas, Bishop Mym ' 
of Myra. Not mentioned by a single ancient his- 
torian, he yet figures in the traditional pictures of the 
Council as the foremost figure of all. Type as he is 
of universal benevolence to sailors, to thieves, to the 
victims of thieves, to children, — known by his broad 
red face and flowing white hair, — the traditions of the 
East always represent him as standing in the midst 
of the assembly, and suddenly roused by righteous 
indignation to assail the heretic Arius with a tre- 
mendous box on the ear. 1 

4. One more groupe of deputies closes the The 
arrivals. The Nicene Council was, as I have often Bishops, 
said, a Council of the Eastern Church; and Eastern 
seemingly were at least 310 of the 318 Bishops. 
But the West was not entirely unrepresented. Ni- 
casius from France, Marcus from Calabria, Capito 
from Sicily, Eustorgius from Milan (where a ve- 
nerable church is still dedicated to his memory), 
Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia, were the less con- 
spicuous deputies of the Western provinces. 

But there were five men whose presence must 
have been full of interest to their Eastern bre- 
thren. Corresponding to John the Persian from Theophi- 

I US til 6 

the extreme East, was Theophilus the Goth from Goth, 
the extreme North. His light complexion doubtless 
made a marked contrast with the tawny hue and 
dark hair of almost all the rest. They rejoiced to 



1 See Tillemont, vi. 688. Comp. Lecture IV. 



1 28 The Council of Nicasa. Lect. III. 

think that they had a genuine Scythian amongst 
them. 1 From all future generations of his Teutonic 
countrymen he may claim attention, as the prede- 
cessor and teacher of Ulphilas 2 , the great missionary 
of the Gothic nation. 3 
Csecilian of Out of the province of Northern Africa, the 
earliest cradle of the Latin Church, came Caecilian, 
Bishop of Carthage. A few years ago he had him- 
self been convened before the two "Western Coun- 
cils of the Lateran and of Aries, and had there been 
acquitted of the charges brought against him by the 
Donatists. 

If any of the distant Orientals had hoped to catch 
a sight of the Bishop of the " Imperial city," they 
were doomed to disappointment. Doubtless, had he 
been there, his position as prelate of the capital would 
have been, if not first, at least among the first. But 
Sylvester 4 was now far advanced in years; and in 
victor and his place came the two presbyters, who, according to 
the Roman the arrangement laid down by the Emperor, would 
Piesbyteis. j iaye accom p an i ec l hi m na d ne "been able to make the 

journey. In this simple deputation later writers 
have seen (and perhaps by a gradual process the 
connexion might be traced) the first germ of legati 
a latere. But it must have been a very far-seeing 
eye which in Victor and Vincentius, the two unknown 
elders, representing their sick old Bishop, could have 
detected the predecessors of Pandulf or of Woisey. 
Hosius of With them, however, was a man who, though now 

Cordova. . f . 

long forgotten, was then an object of deeper interest 



1 Eus. V. C. iii. 7. 2 Soc. ii. 41. 3 See Lecture IX. 

4 Sozomen (1. 17.), by mistake, says "Julius." 



Lect. III. Deputies from the West. 



129 



to Christendom than any Bishop of Rome could at 
that time have been. It was the world-renowned 
Spaniard, as he is called by Eusebius ; the magi- 
cian from Spain 1 , as he is called by Zosimus; Hosius, 
Bishop of Cordova. He was the representative of 
the westernmost of European Churches ; but, as Eu- 
sebius of Caesarea was the chief counsellor of the 
Emperor in the Greek Church, so was Hosius in the 
Latin Church, as we shall see hereafter in the darkest 
and most mysterious crisis of Constantine's life. With 
some there present he was personally acquainted. 
The Alexandrian deputies had already seen him, 
when he had come to their city charged with the 
Emperor's pacificatory letter to Alexander and 
Arius. He and Eusebius must have been regarded 
as the most powerful persons in the assembly. He 
had still thirty years of life to run, yet he was 
already venerable with years and sufferings and 
honours. He had been a confessor in the persecu- 
tions of Maximin ; he was received, Athanasius tells 
us, with profound reverence, as that " Abrahamic 
old man, well called Hosius 2 , the 'Holy';" and pro- 
bably no one then present would have thought of 
inquiring whether any portion of his authority was 
derived from the absent Bishop of Rome. This 
claim for him has been set up in later times ; and it 
is possible that, as he was certainly charged with the 
secrets of the Roman Emperor, so he may have been 

1 See Lecture VI. 

2 Apol. Ap. Ar. 44 ; De Fuga ? 5 ; Ad Mon. 42 — 45. The name 
" Hosius" (oaioe) was given to each of the five priests attendant 
on the Pytlria at Delphi. (Plut. Qu. Gr. 9.) 

VOL. I. K ^- 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. in. 



with those of the Roman Bishop. But such was 
not the impression produced on the contemporary 
witnesses of the scene; his own high character, his 
intimacy with Constantine, and his theological learn- 
ing, were sufficient of themselves to have secured 
for him the position which he occupied there, as in 
all the other Councils of the age. 
Preiimi- VI. It was probably by degrees that these dif- 
cussions." ferent arrivals took place, and the lapse of two or 
three weeks must be supposed, for the preparatory 
arrangements, before the Council was formally opened. 
This interval was occupied by eager discussions on 
the questions likely to be debated. The first as- 
semblage had been, as we have seen, within the walls 
of a public building. But the other preliminary 
meetings were held, as was natural, in the streets 
or colonnades in the open air. The novelty of the 
occasion had collected many strangers to the spot. 
Laymen, philosophers, heathen as well as Christian, 
might be seen joining in the arguments on either 
side 1 , orthodox as well as heretical. There were 
also discussions amongst the Orthodox themselves 
as to the principle on which the debates should be 
conducted. The enumeration of the characters just 
given shows that there were two very different elements 
in the assembly, such indeed as will always constitute 
the main difficulty in making any general statements 
of theology which shall be satisfactory at once to 
the few and to the many. A large number, per- 

1 Soc. i. 8 : kv zKarepcp fxepei avrrjyopelv 7rpodvfj,oviuai'oi. This 
disproves the later versions of the discussions, as if the philosophers 
had been all on the Arian side. 



Lect. III. Preliminary Discussions. 



3 



haps the majority, consisted of rough, simple, almost 
illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd, Potammon 
the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith 
earnestly and sincerely, but without much conscious 
knowledge of the grounds on which they maintained 
it, incapable of arguing themselves, or of entering 
into the arguments of their opponents. These men, 
when suddenly brought into collision with the acutest 
and most learned disputants of the age, naturally 
took up the position that the safest course was to 
hold by what had been handed down, without any 
further inquiry or explanation. A story somewhat Thetheo- 
variously told is related of an encounter of one of IndXe 
these simple characters with the more philosophical laymau * 
combatants, which, in whatever way it be taken, 
well illustrates the mixed character of the Council, 
and the choice of courses open before it. As Socrates 
describes the incident, the disputes were running so 
high, from the mere pleasure of argument, that there 
seemed likely to be no end to the controversy ; when 
suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sight- 
less eye, or limping leg, bore witness of his zeal for 
the Christian faith, stepped amongst them, and 
abruptly said: " Christ and the Apostles left us, not 
" a system of logic, nor a vain deceit, but a naked 
"truth, to be guarded by faith and good works." 
"There has," says Bishop Kaye 1 in recording the 
story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which 
" its members have not required to be reminded of 
"this lesson." On the present occasion the by- 

1 " Some Account of the Council of Nicaea," p. 39. 
k 2 



132 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. III. 



standers, at least for the moment, were struck by its 
happy application, the disputants, after hearing this 
plain word of truth, took their differences more 
good-humouredly, and the hubbub of controversy 
subsided. 

The pbiio- Another version of the same story, or another 
the pea- story of the same kind, with a somewhat different 
moral, is told by Rufinus and Sozomen 1 , and amplified 
by later writers. The disputants, or rather dispu- 
tant (for one is specially selected), is now not a 
Christian theologian, but a heathen philosopher, to 
whom, in later writings, is given the suspicious name 
of Eulogius 2 , " Fairspeech." He was a perfect master 
of argument ; the moment that he seemed to be 
caught by one of his opponents, he slipped out of 
their hands like an eel or a snake. 3 His opponent 
is, in this story, not a layman, but an aged bishop 
or priest (and here the later account identifies him 
with the shepherd Spyridion). Unable to bear 
any longer the taunts with which the philosopher 
assailed a groupe of Christians, amongst whom he 
was standing, he came forth to refute him. His un- 
couth appearance, rendered more hideous by the 
mutilations he had undergone in the persecutions, 
provoked a roar of laughter from his opponents, 
whilst his friends were not a little uneasy at seeing 
their cause intrusted to so unskilled a champion. 
But he felt himself strong in his own simplicity. 
" In the name of Jesus Christ," he called out to his 



1 Ruf. i. 3 ; Soz. i. 18. 

3 Ruf. i. 3 : " Velut anguis lubricus." 



2 Gelasius, iii. 13. 



Lect. III. Preliminary Discussions. 



133 



antagonist, " liear me, philosopher. There is one 
" God, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things 
" visible and invisible : who made all things by the 
" power of His Word, and by the holiness of His Holy 
" Spirit. This Word, by which name we call the 
" Son of God, took compassion on men for their wan- 
" dering astray, and for their savage condition, and 
" chose to be born of a woman, and to converse with 
" men, and to die for them, and he shall come again 
"to judge every one for the things done in life. 
" These things we believe without curious inquiry. 
" Cease therefore the vain labour of seeking proofs 
" for or against what is established by faith, and the 
" manner in which these things may be or may not 
" be ; but, if thou believest, answer at once to me 
" as I put my questions to you." 

The philosopher was struck dumb by this new 
mode of argument. He could only reply that he 
assented. " Then," answered the old man, "if thou 
"believest this, rise and follow me to the Lord's 
"house 1 , and receive the sign of this faith." The 
philosopher turned round to his disciples, or to those 
who had been gathered round him by curiosity. 
" Hear," he said, "my learned friends. So long as it 
" was a matter of words, I opposed words to words, 
"and whatever was spoken I overthrew by my skill 
" in speaking, but when, in the place of words, power 
" came out of the speaker's lips, words could no 
" longer resist power, man could no longer resist, 

1 Ruf. i. 3 : " Ad douiinicuni." This shows that they were 
outside the building, see p. 130. 



134 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. III. 



" If any of you feel as I have felt, let him believe in 
" Christ, and let him follow this old man in whom 
" God has spoken." Exaggerated or not 1 , this story 
is a proof of the magnetic power of earnestness and 
simplicity over argument and speculation. 
Principle These tales represent probably the feeling of a large 
discussion, portion of the Council — the sound, unprofessional, 
untheological, lay element which lay at the basis of 
all their weakness and their strength. The his- 
torian Socrates is very anxious to prove that the 
assembly was not entirely composed of men of this 
kind, and he points triumphantly to the presence of 
such men as Eusebius of Ca3sarea. No proof was 
necessary. The subsequent history of the Council 
itself is a sufficient indication that, however small 
a minority might be the dialecticians and theolo- 
gians, yet they constituted the life and movement 
of the whole. Socrates dwells with evident pleasure 2 
on the circumstance that the ultimate decisions were 
only made after long inquiry, and that everything 
was stirred to the bottom. Gelasius, in the next 
century, so far from being satisfied with the sum- 
mary treatment of the disputant by the old confessor, 
introduces a second philosopher, of the name of 
Phasdo, who has a pitched battle with five Bishops 3 , 
Hosius included, whose arguments are drawn out 

1 See a similar story of Alexander of Byzantium, who was 
present at the Council (Soz. i. 17), and of Xavier (Grant's Barnp- 
ton Lectures, p. 272). 

2 i. 9. 

3 Hosius, Leontius, Eusebius, Macarius, and Eupsychius (of 
Tyana). (Gelas. iii. 14—23.) 



Lect. III. 



Preliminary Discussions. 



i35 



at full length. This, though fabulous in its details, 
is doubtless true in its substance. The frenzy of 
argument was too vehement to be restrained. Here- 
tics and Orthodox alike felt themselves compelled to 
advance. 

We may wish, with Bishop Kaye, that it had been 
otherwise. But there is a point of view in which 
we may fully sympathise with the course that was 
taken. All the elements which go to make up the 
interest of theology were involved : love of free in- 
quiry, desire of precision in philosophical statements, 
research into Christian antiquity, comparison of the 
texts of Scripture one with another. Traditional and 
episcopal authority was regarded as insufficient for 
the establishment of the faith. The well-known 
clause of the Twenty-first Article does but express 
the principle of the Nicene Fathers themselves: — 
" Things ordained by them as necessary for salva- 
" tion have neither strength nor authority unless 
" it may be declared that they are taken out of Holy 
" Scripture." The battle was fought and won by 
quotations, not from tradition, but from the Old 
and New Testament. The overruling sentiment 
was, that even ancient opinions were not to be 
received without sifting and inquiry. 1 The chief 
combatant and champion of the faith was not the 
Bishop of Antioch or of Rome, nor the Pope of 
Alexandria, but the Deacon Athanasius. The eager 
discussions of Nicaea present the first grand prece- 
dent for the duty of private judgment, and the 



1 Soz. i. 17, 25. 



136 



The Council of Niccea. 



Lect. III. 



free, unrestrained exercise of Biblical and historical 
criticism. 1 

And now, on the morrow of the discussion between 
the peasant and the theologians 2 , the day arrived 
when the Council was to begin its work in earnest, 
— the day when they should at last see the great 
man at whose bidding they were met together, and 
to whose arrival many looked forward as the chief 
event of the assembly. 3 The Emperor was on his 
way to Mcsea, and would be there in a few hours to 
open the Council in person. 

1 It has been often maintained that the decisions of the Coun- 
cil were based on authority, not on argument. It is certain 
that some of the reasonings of Athanasius rest on the general 
reception of the Nicene doctrines, rather than on their intrin- 
sic truth. (See the quotations and inferences in Keble's Ser- 
mons, pp. 392 — 394.) But the whole tenour of the narrative in 
Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen points to the conclusion that 
the existing tradition was alleged, not as authority, but as 
historical evidence, and that it was alleged subordinately to the 
argument from the Bible itself. Compare especially the para- 
graph at the close of Sozom. i. 17: 01 lcxxyp^ 0VT0 — povXijc. 
Ibid. i. 25 : [isra ^-qrriGiv ai;pi.€r} /ecu fiavavov izavT^v twv cifupi- 
€o/\wr doKifj.aaOe~icrav. 

2 Soc. i. 8 3 Eus. V. C. iii. 6. 



Lect. IV. 



Opening of the Council. 



137 



LECTUEE IV. 

THE OPENING- OF THE COUNCIL. 

The Emperor had already been at Nicasa on the Arrival of 
23rd of May ; as we happen to learn by an edict ror. 
dated from that city against usurers in Palestine. 1 
Probably he had come before the arrival of the 
Bishops, to ascertain that fit preparations were made 
for their reception. He had then, as it would seem, 
returned to Mcomedia, to celebrate his victory over 
Licinius. If he waited for the actual anniversary, 
he must have remained there till the 3rd of July, 
and consequently could not have arrived at Nicaea 
till the 5th. The earlier dates, however, for the 
opening of the Council — the 14th or the 19th of 
June — are inconsistent with so long a delay. We 
must be content, therefore, to leave the precise day 
in doubt. 

The first news that greeted him on his arrival must com- 
have been an unpleasing surprise. He had no sooner tle ntS ° 
taken up his quarters in the Palace at Nicaea, than Blshops - 
he found showered in upon him a number of parch- 
ment rolls, or letters, containing complaints and pe- 
titions against each other from the larger part 2 of the 

1 Cod. Theod. i. p. xxv. 

2 Soc. i. 8 : ol ttXewveq. This contradicts the later notion that 
the Arians were the only complainants. 



i 3 8 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. IV. 



assembled Bishops. We cannot ascertain with cer- 
tainty whether they were collected in a single day, 
or went on accumulating day after day. 1 It was a 
poor omen for the unanimity which he had so much 
at heart. 

"We may indeed make some excuses. We may 
remember how, even in prison, the English Eeformers 
maintained an unceasing strife with each other on 
the dark points of Calvinism. We are expressly told 
both by Eusebius and Sozomen, that one motive 2 
which had drawn many to the Council was the hope 
of settling their own private concerns, and promoting 
their own private interests. It was the practice to 
seize the opportunity of solemn processions 3 of the 
sovereigns to temples and afterwards to churches, 
as even now of the Sultans to mosques, in order to 
lay wait with petitions, as the only means of catchiDg 
their attention. There, too, were the pent up grudges 
and quarrels of years ; which now for the first time 
had an opportunity of making themselves heard. 
Never before had these remote, often obscure, 
ministers of a persecuted sect come within the range 
of Imperial power. He whose presence was for the 
first time so close to them, bore the same authority 
of which the Apostle had said that it was the su- 
preme earthly distributor of justice to mankind. 
Still, after all due allowance, it is impossible not 
to share in the Emperor's astonishment that this 
should have been the first act of the first (Ecumenical 
Assembly of the Christian Church. Constantine 



> Soc. i. 8. 2 Eus. V. C. iii. 6 ; Soz. i. 17. 

3 See Dufresne, Ylpoodog. 



Lect. IV. Hall of Assembly. 



139 



received the letters in silence. 1 His reply we shall 
hear, when at his own time he chooses to give it. 

The meetings of the representatives, which had up Hail of 
to this time been in the church, or gymnasium, or in Assemb 
separate localities, were henceforth to be solemnised 
in the Imperial residence itself. It is with reluctance 
that later controversialists, accustomed to the idea of 
a Council meeting only within consecrated walls, will 
admit of this transference. But the fact is un- 
doubted, and is in accordance not only with the para- 
mount importance of the Emperor on this occasion, 
but with the precedent already established in the 
little Council in the Lateran Palace at Rome, and 
afterwards confirmed by the two Councils held in the 
vaulted room called the "Trullus" in the palace 
at Constantinople. Tradition points out the spot, 
marked by a few broken columns, at the south-west 
angle of the walls, close by the shores of the lake. 
A solitary pomegranate grows on the ruins. The 
chamber prepared for their reception was a large 
oblong hall 2 , in the centre of the palace — the largest 
that it contained. Benches 3 were ranged along the 
walls on 4 each side for those of lower dignity, and 
seats, or chairs, for those of higher ; along these were 
ranged the 300 prelates, perhaps with their assistant 
deacons and presbyters. In the centre of the room, 
on a seat or throne, was placed a copy of the Holy 

1 It is probably this scene (with another later incident) which 
led the first Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford to describe 
the Nicene fathers as a set of demoniacs, driven by evil furies 
and malignant passions. (Peter Martyr, Comm. on 1 Kings, xii.) 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. 

3 Theod. i. 7 ; Eus. V. C. iii. 10. 

4 Niceph. viii. 16. 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. IV. 



Gospels 1 , as the nearest approach to the presence of 
Christ Himself. Every eye was fixed on one small 
vacant stall or throne, carved in wood, richly gilt, 
such as was usually 2 occupied by the sovereign at 
the Circus or Hippodrome — now placed in the upper 
end of the hall, between the two ranges of seats. 
Entrance The long-sustained disputations, the eager recri- 

of the Em- . . . . & 

peror. minations, were at last hushed into a deep silence. 

Not a voice broke the stillness of that expectation 
which precedes the coming of a long wished for, 
unknown spectacle, the onward march of a distant 
procession. 3 Presently a stir was heard, — first one, 
then another, and then a third, of the ofiicers of the 
court dropped in. Then the column widened. But 
still the wonted array of shields and spears 4 was 
absent. The heathen guards were not to enter the 
great Christian assembly which had, as it were, con- 
secrated the place where it sate. Only those courtiers 
who were converted to the Christian faith were 
allowed to herald the approach of their master. At 
last a signal from without, — probably a torch raised 
by the " cursor " or avant-courier 5 — announced 
that the Emperor was close at hand. The whole 
assembly rose and stood on their feet ; and then for 

1 Westcott on the Canon, 496. This at least was the custom 
of the later Councils, as of Ephesus. (Ib. i. 175.) See Suicer, 
EvayyeXiov, p 1227 ; and so it is in the picture at Nicaea. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 10 : Kadifffxa. See Dufresne in voce. 

3 Ibid. iii. 10 : irpoodov The word always used for the Im- 
perial processions. Dufresne in voce. 

4 The appearance of a single guard (speculator) at the Council 
of Tyre was the subject of much remark. (Ath. Apol. c. Arian. 8.) 

5 For the torches carried by the avant-couriers, see Eus. 
Pan eg. i. 1. 



Lect. IV. 



Entrance of Constantine. 



the first time set their admiring gaze on Constantine, 
the Conqueror, the August, the Great. He entered. 
His towering stature 1 , his strong-built frame, his broad 
shoulders, his handsome features, were worthy of his 
magnificent position. 2 There was a brightness in 
his look and a mingled expression of fierceness and 
gentleness 3 in his lion-like eye, which well became 
one who, as Augustus before him, had fancied, and 
perhaps still fancied, himself to be the favourite of the 
Sun-god Apollo. The Bishops were further struck 
by the dazzling, perhaps barbaric, magnificence of 
his dress. Always careful of his appearance, he was 
so on this occasion in an eminent degree. His 
long hair, false or real, was crowned with the 
imperial diadem of pearls. .His purple or scarlet 
robe blazed with precious stones and gold embroi- 
dery. He was shod no doubt in the scarlet shoes 4 
then confined to the Emperors, now perpetuated in 
the Pope and Cardinals. Many of the Bishops had 
probably never seen any greater functionary than a 
remote provincial magistrate, and gazing at his 
splendid figure as he passed up the hall between their 
ranks, remembering too what he had done for their 
faith and for their Church, — we may well believe 
that the simple and the worldly both looked upon 
him, as we are told they did, as though he were an 
angel of God, descended straight from Heaven. 5 Yet 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. 

2 See Lecture VI. 3 Cedrenus, i. 472. 

4 " Campagi." See Mr. Payne Smith's note on John of Ephesus, 
p. 56. 

5 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. That this feeling was not peculiar to 
Eusebius, may be gathered from the expressions collected by Dr. 
Newman in his note on Athanasius's Tracts, i. 59. 



142 



The Council of Nicsea. 



Lect. IV. 



the awe was not exclusively on their side. 1 However 
imperfect may have been Constantine's religion, yet 
there can be little doubt that, as far as it went, it was 
devout even to superstition. It was a solemn moment 
for him to find himself for the first time in the midst 
of the representatives of the great community of 
which he had so recently professed himself a sincere 
adherent. Whatever sacredness had before in his eyes 
attached to flamens and augurs, now in a still higher 
degree he transferred to the venerable men who stood 
before him, and whose very looks, whose very dis- 
figurements, bore witness to the earnestness and 
energy of their young and vigorous faith. The 
colour rushed to the Emperor's cheeks. 2 We cannot 
forget how far more innocent and ingenuous was this 
first Imperial blush, than that which became memo- 
rable, ages afterwards, in the great Council of the 
Latin Church — the " blush of Sigismund" observed 
at Constance, remembered at Worms. It was the 
genuine expression of Constantine's excitement and 
emotion. As he advanced up the hall he cast his 
eyes down, his steps faltered, and when he reached 
the throne allotted to him, he stood motionless, till 
the Bishops beckoned to him to be seated. He then 
sat down, and they followed his example. 

If he was still anxious as he looked round on so 
many strange faces, he must have been reassured as 
he looked on his right hand and his left. Which of 
the Bishops occupied these places of honour has been 
vehemently disputed in later times, and it is still 

1 See Lecture VI. 2 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. 



Lect. IV. 



Chief Seats. 



H3 



further complicated by the ambiguity of the use of 
the words. Was the chief seat on the right-hand 
side of the Emperor, or the right-hand side of the 
hall ? Apparently, as the Emperor's seat was not 
permanently there, and as the Bishops were ar- 
ranged irrespectively of his entrance, the latter of 
these two meanings must be adopted. The left- Hosiuson 

7 the left. 

hand place has been usually assigned to Hosius 
of Cordova; and in a picture of the Nicene Coun- 
cil which adorns the Escurial library, the Church 
of Spain, in her zeal for this her eldest and most 
distinguished son, makes the very most of him. 
But Roman writers, eager to claim the first place for 
him, as the supposed representative of the Papal see 1 , 
have ingeniously argued that the left, and not the 
right, was, with the ancient Romans, the place of 
honour; and further, what is also undoubted — 
although inconsistent with the argument just used — 
that the left-hand side of the hall would give him the 
right-hand side of the Emperor. 2 The right-hand 
post has been naturally more contested. In the 
picture of the Nicene Council at Nicgea itself, and 
also in the annals of the Alexandrian Church 3 , it is 

1 In ancient pictures it is observed of St. Peter and St. Paul, of 
the Virgin and St. John, that St. Peter and the Virgin are on the 
left hand of the Saviour. (Baronius, 52 — 60; B ell ar mine, De 
Cone. i. 19 ; in Mansi, ii. 730.) 

2 In the Council of Chalcedon, the Legates of Rome, with the 
Bishops of Constantinople and Antioch, sat on the left, and the 
Bishops of Alexandria and Jerusalem on the right, of the Imperial 
officers. But there they ranged themselves according to their 
opinions. (Tillemont, xv. 649.) 

3 Eutych. Ann. i. 444. 



i 4 + 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. IV. 



filled by Alexander of Alexandria. Theodoret 1 
gives it to Eustathius of Antioch. But there can 
be little doubt that, as on one side of the Emperor 
sat his Western favourite Hosius, so on the other 
Eusebius side, his Eastern favourite Eusebius. Twice over 
right. Eusebius has himself told us so ; and from him 2 we 
also know how, as soon as Constantine and the 
assembly were seated, he rose from his place, and in 
metrical prose, if not in actual verses, recited an 
address to the Emperor, and then a hymn of thanks- 
giving to the Almighty for the victory over Licinius, 
of which the anniversary had so lately been cele- 
brated. He resumed his seat, and again a deep 
silence prevailed. All eyes were fixed on Constan- 
tine. He cast round one of those bright glances of 
which he was master ; and then, after a momentary 
self-recollection, addressed them in a short speech, 
exhorting concord and unanimity. It was in Latin, — 
on so solemn an occasion he would not depart from 
the Imperial language, in which long afterwards the 
laws even of his new capital were written, — and, 
therefore, very few of those present could have 
understood it. But there was a gentleness and 
sweetness in his voice which arrested the attention of 

1 i. 7. He must have had some ground for this ; as Eustathius 
was evidently one of his chief authorities for the events of the 
Council. 

2 Eus. V. C. i. 1 ; iii. 1 ; Soz. i. 18. A short speech, supposed 
to be the one now spoken, but really written by Gregory of Neo- 
cassarea in the seventh century, is preserved in Fabricius, Biblioth. 
Gr. ix. 132. Its use of the words fxia ovoia kv rpiaiv vTvotrraataL 
is fatal to its genuineness. Nicephorus (viii. 16) and Epiphanius 
Scholasticus (ii. 5) give the first speech to Eustathius, the second 
to Eusebius. 



Lect. IV. 



The Emperor's Speech. 



all; and as soon as it was concluded the Imperial 
dragoman or interpreter translated 1 it into Greek. 

" It has, my friends, been the object of my highest TheEm- 
" wishes, to enjoy your sacred company, and having speech. 
M obtained this, I confess my thankfulness to the 
a King of all, that in addition to all my other bless- 
" ings He has granted to me this greatest of all — 
" I mean, to receive you all assembled together, and 
" to see one common harmonious opinion of all. Let, 
" then, no envious enemy injure our happiness, and, 
11 after the destruction of the impious power of the 
" tyrants by the might of God our Saviour, let not 
" the Spirit of evil overwhelm the Divine law with 
" blasphemies ; for to me far worse than any war or 
" battle is the civil war of the Church of God; yes, 
" far more painful than the wars which have raged 
" without. As, then, by the assent and co-operation 
u of a higher power I have gained my victories over 
u my enemies, I thought that nothing remained but to 
" give God thanks, and to rejoice with those who 
" have been delivered by us. But since I learned of 
" your divisions, contrary to all expectations, I gave 
" the report my first consideration ; and praying that 
" this also might be healed through my assistance, I 
" called you all together without delay. 1 rejoice at 
" the mere sight of your assembly ; but the moment 
" that I shall consider the chief fulfilment of my 
" prayers will be when I see you all joined together 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 13 : vtyep/j-rirevovToc. As late as the Council of 
Chalcedon, the Emperor Marcian spoke in Latin, which was 
then translated into Greek. (Mansi, vii. 127.) A false speech 
of Constantine is given in Gelas. iii. 7. 
VOL. I. L 



I 



146 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. IV. 



u in heart and soul, and determining on one peaceful 
" harmony for all, which it should well become you 
" who are consecrated to God, to preach to others. 
" Do not, then, delay, my friends; do not delay, 
" ministers of God, and good servants of our common 
" Lord and Saviour, to remove all grounds of differ- 
" ence, and to wind up by laws of peace every link 
" of controversy. Thus will you have done what is 
" most pleasing to the God who is over all, and you 
" will render the greatest boon to me, your fellow- 
" servant." 1 

The open- The Council was now formally opened, and the 

ing of the . 

Council. Emperor gave permission to the presidents 01 the 
assembly to commence their proceedings. 

In the Egyptian traditions this was enlarged into 
a formal authorisation of the legal powers of the 
Council. He gave to them, it was said, his ring, his 
sword, and his sceptre, with the words, " To you I 
" have this day given power over my empire, to do in 
" it whatever you think fit for the promotion of re- 
" ligion and for the advantage of the faithful," 2 This, 
no doubt, is a later invention. But it is probably 
so far correct that the Emperor's intention was to 
constitute them into an independent body for the set- 
tlement of these questions, however much his personal 
influence controlled their decisions, and his authority 
was needed for the ratification of their 'decrees. 3 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 12. 2 Eutych. i. 443. 

3 Athanasius (Apol. c. Ar. c. 9) is full of horror at a count having 
presided at the Council of Tyre. Technically speaking, this was 
inconsistent with the precedents of Nicsea. But the Emperor's 
officers appeared frequently in the Council of Chalcedon. Mansi, 
vi. 822. 



Lect. IV. 



The mutual Complaints. 



147 



The plural number used by Eusebius to designate The Presi- 
the presidency of the Council, renders it probable 
that the two Bishops of the leading sees, Alexandria 
and Antioch 1 , must be amongst those intended ; the 
general testimony points to Hosius as another, who, 
from the causes already mentioned, would naturally 
be what he is expressly styled by Athanasius, leader 
of all the Councils ; and to these, by his own account, 
we must add Eusebius of Cassarea. 

From this moment the flood-gates of discussion were The mu- 
opened wide; and- from side to side recriminations plaints, 
and accusations were bandied to and fro, without 
regard to the Imperial presence. He remained un- 
moved amidst the clatter of angry voices, turning 
from one side of the hall to the other, giving his 
whole attention to the questions proposed, bringing 
together the violent partisans. He condescended 
to lay aside his stately Latin, and addressed them 
in such broken Greek as he could command, still 
in that sweet and gentle voice, praising some, per- 
suading others, putting others to the blush, but 
directing all his energies to that one point, which he 
has himself described as his aim — a unanimity of 
decision. 2 We have it on his own authority, that he 
reckoned himself as one of the number — as a bishop 
for the time being 3 ; and that he took an active part 
in the discussion. It was probably in this first 
session that he put a stop to those personal quarrels, 
of which he had already had the earliest instalment 



1 In Facundus, i. 1, xi. 1, Eustathius is president. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 13. 3 Soc. i. 9. (30.) 

l 2 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. IV. 



on his arrival on the preceding day. 1 We cannot 
doubt, from the eagerness with which their complaints 
had been handed in, that this must have been the 
uppermost thought in the minds of most of the 
assembly when the debates began, and their expecta- 
tion would be raised to a high pitch when the 
Emperor produced, before the Council, from the 
folds of his mantle 2 , the petitions on their papyrus 
The Em- or parchment rolls. He pointed to them as they 
answer, lay, bound up and sealed with his Imperial ring; 

and then, after declaring with a solemn oath 3 (his 
usual mode of attestation) that he had not read 
one of them, he ordered a brazier 4 to be brought 
in, in which they were burnt at once in the presence 
of the assembly. Three speeches are given by the 
different historians on the occasion, each probably ex- 
pressive of three different turns which the Emperor's 
mind may have taken. According to Socrates, after 
having dwelt on the importance of dismissing those 
personal disputes, if they hoped to arrive at a con- 

1 In this I follow the account of Socrates, because, — 

a) He is more precise in his statement of the days than the 
others. 

b) His account is confirmed by Gelasius, and not absolutely 
contradicted by Rufinus and Sozomen. 

c) The mention of the purple robe in Theodoret, i. 10, agrees 
with the Emperor's dress on the first day. 

d) The incident naturally finds a place in the general scene 
described by Eusebius, V. C. iii. 13. 

e) The impression conveyed by Eusebius, V. C. iii. 12, is that the 
greater part of the assembly then saw Constantino for the first 
time. 

2 Rufinus, H. E. i. 2 : " In sinu suo continens." 

3 For his oath, see Lecture VI. 

4 Niceph. viii. 17. 



Lect. IV. The mutual Complaints. 



149 



elusion on the great matter which had called them 
together, he added 1 just this one pregnant remark, as 
the parchments were smouldering in the flames — 
u It is the command of Christ that he who desires 
"to be himself forgiven must first forgive his 
" brother." 2 According to Theodoret and Eufinus 
there was mingled with this feeling of disgust at 
the want of Christian concord in them, and with 
the desire for it in his own mind, something of the 
almost superstitious awe which animated him, as we 
have already seen, in the presence of the Christian 
clergy. Perhaps, also, he may have intended a stroke 
of that quiet humour which was one of the happiest 
characteristics of his public speeches. 3 " You have 
u been made by God priests and rulers, to judge and 
" decide .... and have even been made Gods, so 
" highly raised as you are above men ; for it is written 
" — 'I have said ye are Gods, and ye are all the 
" children of the Most High;' 'and God stood in the 
" congregation of the gods, and in the midst He judges 
" the gods.' 4 You ought really to neglect these com- 
" mon matters, and devote yourselves to the things 
" of God. It is not for me to judge of what awaits 
" the judgment of God only." And as the libels 
vanished into ashes, he urged them — " Never to let 
" the faults of men in their consecrated offices be 
w publicly known to the scandal and temptation of 

1 Soc. i. 8, 20 : e7T£L7ru)V fiovov. 

2 Dioscorus, President of the (Robber) Council of Ephesus, 
rejected like complaints for a very different reason. See the 
excellent remarks of Theodoret, Ep. 147. 

3 Victor, 23 : " Irrisor potius quam blandus." 

4 Ruf. i. 2. 

l 3 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. IV. 



" the multitude." " Nay," he added, doubtless spread- 
ing out the folds of his Imperial mantle as he spoke, 
" even though I were with my own eyes to see a 
44 bishop in the act of gross sin 1 , I would throw my 
44 purple robe over him, that no one might suffer 
44 from the sight of such a crime." 

The theological controversy which followed, though 
doubtless lightened and sweetened by this abrupt 
disentanglement of it from bitter personal grievances, 
was more difficult to terminate. And we have no 
continuous account of the mode in which it was con- 
ducted. We know not whether it lasted weeks or 
days. 2 Of the two eye-witnesses, one (Eusebius) 
tells us next to nothing; the other (Athanasius) 
writes with such a special purpose, that it is hard to 
extract from him the actual facts. Still certain in- 
cidents transpire, and those, in however fragmentary 
a manner, I shall now proceed to describe. 
Thetheo- We have hitherto viewed the Council in its 
parties. national divisions, and in its arrangement of outward 
precedence. We now proceed to view it as it broke 
itself up into theological parties. 3 

The Orthodox side would be represented by the 
Alexandrian Bishop and his deacon Athanasius ; the 
extreme right being occupied by the exaggerated 
vehemence of Marcellus of Ancyra. 4 

The opposite party would be represented by the 

1 Theod. i. 10. That gross licentiousness was one of the 
complaints brought forward may be gathered from the charges 
brought against Eustathius of Antioch and Athanasius. 

2 Ruf. i. 5 : " Per dies singulos agitabatur conventus." 

3 This is well given in Hefele, i. 273. 

4 Ath. Apol. c. Arian. 23, 32. Cyril. Alex. torn. v. pt. i.p. 4. 



Lect. IV. 



Its Theological Parties. 



three Bithynian Bishops, Eusebius of Mcomedia, 
Theognis, and Maris, with those prelates of Palestine 
and Asia Minor who had committed themselves to 
the same view, deepening on the extreme left into 
Arius himself, supported by his two boldest adhe- 
rents, Theonas and Secundus. 

The great mass of the assembled Bishops 1 would 
occupy the centre between these two extremes; 
shading off on the one side through men like Leon- 
tius and Hosius into the party of Alexander and 
Athanasius, and on the other through men like 
Eusebius of Cgesarea and Paulinus of Tyre into 
the extreme Arian party of the Bithynian Bishops. 2 

The discussion was, like those which had preceded 
it, based on the principle of free inquiry, and not 



1 Neander (iv. 40) well points out the unfairness of Athanasius 
in ignoring this large intermediate party. 

2 The Arian bishops are thus reckoned by Philostorgins : 



1. Sentianus of Boreum. 

2. Dachius of Berenice. 

3. Secundus of Theuchira. 

4. Zopyrus of Barca. 

5. Secundus of Ptoleniais. 

6. Theonas of Marmarica. 

7. Meletius of Thebes. 

8. Patrophilus of Scythopolis. 

9. Eusebius of Ccesarea. 

10. Paulinus of Tyre. 

11. Amphion of Sidon. 

12. Narcissus of Irenopolis 

(Neronias). 



of Cappa- 
docia. 



13. Athanasius of Anazarbus. 

14. Tarcodinatus of JEgae. 

15. Leontius 

16. Longianus 

17. Eulalius 
13. Basil of Amasia. 

19. Meletius of 

bastopolis. 

20. Theognis of Niccea. 

21. Maris of Chalcedon. 

22. Eusebius the Great of 

Nicomedia. 
See Walch. i. 471. 



}. 

nasia. "| 
f Se~ \ 
'is. J 



Pon- 
tus. 



The names in italics are also mentioned by Theodoret (i. 5. 7.); 
Theodoret of Heraclea is added by Gelasius of Cyzicus (ii. 7) ; and 
Theodorus of Laodicea, Gregory of Rerytus, and Aerius of Lydda 
by Theodoret (i. 5). 



L 4 



152 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. IV. 



of authority. The duty — so hateful to theologi- 
cal adversaries — of " exact statement," " searching 
trial," and "hearing both sides," is repeatedly and 
expressly mentioned, both in the narratives and 
documents of the Nicene assembly. 1 

Small as the Arian minority eventually appeared 
to be, it is clear from the account of the debates which 
followed the opening of the Council, that they must 
have had a hope of victory. It may have been this 
confidence that caused their ruin. At least it ap- 
pears that the chief recoil against them was occa- 
sioned by the overweening subtlety or rashness of 
their own statements, which were all more or less 
aggressive. Arius, though as a presbyter he had no 
seat in the Council, was frequently called upon to 
express his opinions. 2 Athanasius was his chief op- 
ponent. 3 It was now, apparently, that the Council 
first heard the songs which Arius had written under 
The Thalia the name of Thalia 4 for the sake of popularising 
his speculations with the lower orders. The songs 
were set to tunes, or written in metres, which had 
acquired a questionable reputation from their use 
in the licentious verses of the heathen poet Sota- 
des, ordinarily used in the low revels or dances of 
Alexandria; and the grave Arius himself is said, 

1 Soc. i. 9, passim. 

2 Ruf. i. 5. He was there by the Emperor's command. (Ib. i. 1.) 

3 See Lecture III. p. 114. A fictitious " Dispute of Athanasius 
and Arius " is found in Athanasius's works, ii. p. 205. 

4 Soc. i. 9, 29. Apollinarius did the same. His songs were 
sung at banquets, and at work, and by women weaving. Soz. 
vi. 25. 



Lect. IV. 



Its Discussions. 



i53 



in moments of wild excitement, to have danced like 
an Eastern dervish, whilst he sang these abstract 
statements in long straggling lines, of which about 
twenty are preserved to us. 1 To us the chief sur- 
prise is that any enthusiasm should have been ex- 
cited by sentences 2 such as these: — " God was not 
"always Father; once He was not Father; after- 
" wards He became Father." But, in proportion to 
the attraction which they possessed for the partisans 
of Arius, was the dismay which they roused in the 
minds of those by whom the expressions which 
Arius thus lightly set aside were regarded as the 
watchwords of the ancient faith. The Bishops, on 
hearing the song, raised their hands in horror, and, 
after the manner of Orientals, when wishing to ex- 
press their disgust at blasphemous words, kept their 
ears fast closed, and their eyes fast shut. 3 

It was doubtless at this point that occurred the TheLe- 
incident, whatever it be, embodied in the legend Mcoias. 
which I have before noticed, of the sudden out- 
break of fury in Nicolas, the old Bishop of Myra, 
who is represented in the traditional pictures of 
the Council as dealing a blow with all his force at 
Arius's jaw. It is this incident, real or imaginary, 
that gave some colour to the charge of violence 
brought by Peter Martyr against the Nicene fathers. 

1 Ath. Or. c. Ar. i. 4. 

2 The extracts are given in Ath. Or. c. Ar. i. 5. 

3 Ath. Or. c. Ar. i. 7. Ath. ad Ep. in Egypt. 13 : iicparovv rag 
cLKoac. Conf. Acts vii. 56 : avvzoypv tci wra. This incident has 
given rise to the groundless complaint of the Polish theologian, 
Sandius, that Arius was condemned unheard. 



* 54 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. IV. 



But the story itself hears witness to the humane 
spirit which exalts this earliest Council above its 
successors. The legend goes on to say that for 
this intemperate act S. Mcolas was deprived of 
his mitre and pall, which were only restored to 
him long afterwards by the intervention of angels ; so 
that in many old pictures he is represented as bare- 
headed, and with his shoulders uncovered. 1 
The Creed At this same conjuncture it must have been that 
the first draft of a Creed was produced in the 
Council, signed by the eighteen 2 extreme Arian par- 
tisans. Its contents are not given. But it was 
received with tumultuous disapprobation ; the docu- 
ment was torn to pieces, and the subscribers, all 
except Theonas and Secundus, gave up Arius on the 
spot, and he was removed from the assembly. 

These violent attacks and explosions were however 
in all probability mere episodes in the assembly. 
The main object of the x Emperor in convening the 
Council was not to lengthen divisions, but to secure 
a unanimous signature to its final report. Like our 
own Elizabeth, he regarded the points at issue as of 
less moment than the formation of one compact Im- 
perial Church. As may be seen in public meetings 
and discussions of every-day occurrence, the devotion 

1 Nauclerus, Chronographia, 506. Molanus, Hist. Sacr. Imag. 
iii. 53. (Ittig, § 38.) Molanus interprets the absence of mitre 
and pall as an indication of the schism and degradation of the 
Greek Church. 

2 Theod. i. 6. For the eighteen Bishops see p. 151. It was 
probably from combining this minority with the round numbers 
of the majority that the traditional number of 318 was attained. 



Lect. IV. Creed of Eusebius. 



i55 



of any one leading person to this single aim is almost 
sure to succeed. Two great efforts were made for 
this purpose by the Emperor's two chief advisers — 
the supporters of what I have called the central party, 
the cross benches of the assembly; and from a com- 
bination of these two the desired result was finally 
brought to pass. 

The solution of the difficulty was sought in the 
production of an ancient Creed, which had existed 
before the rise of the controversy. Excellent and 
obvious as such a solution always is, this seems 
to have been the first attempt of the kind. It was 
proposed by Eusebius of Cassarea. He announced Creed of 
that the confession of faith which he was about Csesarea! 
to propose was no new form, — it was the same 
which he had learned in his childhood from his 
predecessors in the see of Cassarea 1 during the time 
that he was a catechumen, and at his baptism, 
and which he taught for many years, as Pres- 
byter and as Bishop. It had been approved by the 
Emperor 2 , the beloved of Heaven, who had already 
seen it. It accorded with his own view, that Divine 
things cannot be precisely described in human lan- 
guage. He held strongly the modern theological 
doctrine, that the Finite can never grasp the In- 
finite. 3 

This Creed was as follows : — " I believe in one God, 
" the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both 
" visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, 



1 Ath. de Decret. Syn. Nic. 32. 2 Ibid. 

3 Eus. Eccl. Theol. i. 12. (Neander, Hist. iv. 35.) 



56 The Council of Nicasa. Lect. IV. 



" the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, 
u Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the Firstborn 
" of every Creature, begotten of the Father before all 
" worlds, by whom also all things were made. Who 
" for our salvation was incarnate, and lived amongst 
" men, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, 
" and ascended to the Father, and shall come in glory 
" to judge the quick and dead. And we believe in 
" One Holy Ghost. Believing each of them to be and 
" to have existed, the Father, only the Father, and 
" the Son, only the Son, and the Holy Ghost, only 
" the Holy Ghost : As also our Lord sending forth 
" His own disciples to preach, said, 1 Go and teach all 
" ' nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
" 4 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; 7 
" concerning which things we affirm that this is so, 
" and that we so think, and that it has long so been 
" held, and that we remain stedfast to death for this 
" faith, anathematising every godless heresy. That 
" we have thought these things from our heart and 
" soul, from the time that we have known ourselves, 
" and that we now think and say thus in truth, we 
" testify in the name of Almighty God, and of our 
" Lord Jesus Christ, being able to prove even by 
" demonstration, and to persuade you that in past 
" times also thus we believed and preached." 

We recognise at once the basis of the present 
Nicene Creed, and it is a pleasing reflection that this 
basis was the Creed of the Church of Palestine. We 
have Eusebius's express declaration that it was what 
he had himself always been taught in his own native 
city of Csesarea in the plains of Sharon ; and the fact 



Lect. IV. 



Creed of Eusebius. 



i57 



that this declaration occurs in a letter to the inhabi- 
tants of that very place is a guarantee for the truth 
of his statement. An additional confirmation is 
supplied by its likeness to the Creed preserved by 
Cyril, in the neighbouring Church of Jerusalem. 
One phrase, which dropped out of the Creed in its sub- 
sequent passage through the Council, must have had 
a touching sound as repeated amongst the hills and 
valleys of the Holy Land; "who for our salvation 
"lived amongst men." 

The Emperor had read and approved this Confes- 
sion. The Arian minority were willing to adopt 
it. But this very fact was in the eyes of the 
opposite party a fatal difiiculty. They were deter- 
mined to find some form of words which no Arian 
could receive. They seemed to see sinister glances, 
to hear dark mutterings interchanged among their 
opponents 1 , as this or that Orthodox expression 
was mentioned; on every term, "God," "Image," 
" Power," was put some interpretation which just 
eluded the desired meaning. Texts were quoted 
from Scripture, and even from the Shepherd of 
Hermas, to show the large sense of the disputed 
words. At last the weapon which they had been 
seeking to cut off the head of their enemy, was sud- 
denly drawn from his own scabbard. 2 A letter was 
produced from Eusebius of Nicomedia, in which he 
declared that to assert the Son to be uncreated would 
be to say that He was " of one substance " (b[xoo6a-iov) 

1 Ath. de Dec. Syn. Nic. c. 19, 20 ; ad Afros, 5, 6 : rovOopv^ovrae: 
/ecu Siavevovrag ro~tg otydaX/jLolg. 

2 Ambrose de Fide, iii. 15. 



158 The Council of Nicasa. Lect. IV. 



with the Father, — and therefore that to say " He 
" was of one substance/' was a proposition evidently 
absurd. 

The letter produced a violent excitement. There 
was the very test of which they were in search. The 
letter was torn in pieces 1 to mark their indignation, 
and the phrase which he had pledged himself to 
reject became the phrase which they pledged them- 
selves to adopt. 

The Ho- The decisive expression "of one substance" was 
US1 ' not altogether unknown. It was one of those re- 
markable words which creep into the language of 
philosophy and theology, and then suddenly ac- 
quire a permanent hold on the minds of men " Pre- 
destination," " Original Sin," " Prevenient Grace," 
"Atonement;" — there is an interest attaching to 
the birth, the growth, the dominion of words like 
these, almost like that which attaches to the birth 
and growth and dominion of great men or great 
institutions. Such a phrase was the singular com- 
pound " Homoousion : " in its native Greek, though 
abstract, yet simple, and, in its own metaphysical ele- 
ment, almost natural; but in the Latin and Teu- 
tonic languages becoming less and less intelligible, 
though even there, as " Consubstantial," " of one 
substance," retaining a force, which the contemporary 

1 Eustathius apud Theod. i. 7. The document here mentioned 
has been identified sometimes with the Creed of Arius, described 
in page 154 ; sometimes with that of Eusebius of Cassarea in page 
155. But the first supposition is disproved by the order of 
events, and the second by the mention of Nicomedia in Am- 
brose de Fide, iii. 15. Comp. Neander, iv. 40. 



Lect. IV. 



The Homoousion. 



159 



phrases like " Circumincession " and "Projection" 
have entirely lost. The history of the word is full 
of strange vicissitudes. 1 It was born and nurtured, 
if not in the home, at least on the threshold, of 
heresy. It first distinctly appeared in the works of 
Origen 2 , then for a moment acquired a more Or- 
thodox reputation in the writings of Dionysius 3 and 
Theognostus of Alexandria; then it was coloured 
with a dark shade by association with the teaching 
of Manes 4 ; next proposed as a test of Orthodoxy at 
the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata; 
and then by that same Council, was condemned as 
Sabellian. 

On the present occasion it is said to have been first 
talked over at Nicomedia, when Alexander met 
with Hosius on his way to the Council. 5 The imme- 
diate cause of its selection in the Council we have 
already seen. As soon as it was put forth a torrent 
of invective was poured out against it by the Arians. 
It was, so they maintained, un scriptural, heretical, 
materialistic. It was Sabellian. It was Montanistic. 
It denied the separate existence of the Son. 6 It im- 
plied a physical cohesion of the various parts of the 
Godhead. 7 On the other hand, Athanasius and his 

1 For a general account of it see Suicer's Thes. in voce ; New- 
man's Arians, c. ii. § 4 ; Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 1, 16. 

2 Dial. c. Marcion. A. d. 230. It bad, however, casually ap- 
peared before this in a treatise A. d. 120. 

3 Apud Ath. de Syn. 43. 

4 Ath. cle Syn. 16. 5 Philost. i. 7. 

6 Soc. i. 23. 

7 As of particles of gold in a mass, of a child to a parent, of 
a tree to a root. Soc. i. 8. 



6o 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. IV. 



friends retorted, that it was not more unscriptural 
than the dogmatic language of Arius himself ; that 
if it was not found in Scripture in the actual form 
in which they proposed it, it was found at least in 
compound words and in roots of words : if not 
o[xoou<riog, Homoousios, at least there were Periousios 
and Epiousios; if not ousia itself, there was oZctcl asi, 
" always existing." 1 If it had been used by heretics, 
and been condemned as heretical, this had been in 
another sense. It had been defended by at least 
one Orthodox 2 writer of former times. It was 
found in sense, if not in words 3 , both in Scripture 
and in the Fathers. If the acceptance of it seemed 
to savour of recent Sabellianism, the rejection of 
it seemed to involve Polytheism, arid a return to the 
ancient Paganism. 4 

The historian Socrates 5 , looking back on this and 
similar debates from the next century, compares the 
combatants to two armies engaged in a battle at 
night, neither knowing the meaning of the other's 
terms ; each agreeing in the personal existence of the 
Son, and acknowledging the Unity of God in Three 
Persons, yet unable to agree or to rest in their com- 
mon belief. Nor was this view altogether alien from 
the calmer judgment of the great Athanasius himself. 
He, as Bishop Kaye has well observed 6 , rarely if ever 
uses the disputed word in his own statements of the 

1 Ambrose de Fid. iii. 15. 2 Ath de Sjn. 43. 

3 Ibid. i. 270. 4 s oc> i 23. 

5 Soc. i. 23. 

6 Kaye on Nicaea, p. 57. See Lecture VII. 



Lect. IV. 



The Homoousion. 



161 



truth; he avoids it, as if it had a dangerous sound; 
and also, with a moderation and an insight unusual in 
the chief of a theological party, he is willing, unlike 
the extremer partisans of his school, to surrender the 
actual word if it cause offence to weaker brethren, 
and if there was reason to suppose that the same 
sense was intended. 

The course of many centuries has taken out of this 
famous word alike its heretical associations and its 
polemical bitterness. At the time, it indicated the 
exact boundary, the water-mark, which the tide 
of controversy had reached. When Hosius 1 had 
been at Alexandria with Constantine's letter of paci- 
fication, he had endeavoured to mediate between 
the contending parties, by attacking the Sabellian 
as well as the Arian controversialists. Two words The con- 
had then come into antagonism, of which one respecting 
was closely connected with the epithet now about hypostasis. 
to be introduced — ousia and hypostasis. These 
words, which in the Greek of that time were 
almost identical in meaning, and of which the Latin 
language almost used the one (substantia^ hypo- 
stasis) as the translation of the other (ousia), were 
just beginning to show the divergences which after- 
wards dragged them to the opposite points of the 
theological compass. When, therefore, the " Homo- 
ousion" appeared in the Nicene debates, it seemed a 
favourable opportunity for the advocates of the 
several meanings of these two cognate words to 
press on the Council this decision also. But the 



VOL. I. 



1 Soc. iii. 7. 
M 



162 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. IV. 



leading members of the assembly had gone as far 
as they could. If Athanasius showed in youth the 
same moderation on this question that he afterwards 
displayed in age 1 , he must have thrown his weight 
into the decision at which the Council arrived, to 
allow not a word to be said on the subject. The 
phrase ousia was just named in the Creed itself. But 
the phrase hypostasis was mentioned only in allusion 
to a condemned error, and in such a context as to 
confound the two terms together, and, so far as in 
the Council lay, to render impossible the antithesis 
between ousia and hypostasis {substance and person), 
which was made the basis of later confessions. 
Acqmes- To the formula, as thus limited, the consent of the 
Constan- Emperor was now to be obtained. He would be led to 
tme * acquiesce in the term Homoousion from the motives 
which had guided him throughout. He saw that the 
Creed of Eusebius. could never, in its original form, 
gain the assent of the Orthodox, that is, the most 
powerful, part of the assembly. He trusted that by 
this insertion they might be gained, and yet that, 
under the pressure of fear and favour, the others 
might not be altogether repelled. He, therefore, took 
the course the most likely to secure this result, and 
professed himself the patron 2 and also the interpreter 
of the new phrase. The various sections that 
gathered round Eusebius of Cassarea had, on a pre- 
vious occasion, been forced into dead silence by their 
own divisions. 3 But now, by their acceptance of the 
Emperor's terms of peace, they, in their turn, checked 

1 See Lecture VII. 2 Eus. ad Cses. in Theod. i. 12. 

3 Ath. de Dec. Nic. Syn. c. 3. 



Lect.IV. The Creed of Nicaea. 163 



the vehemence of their opponents; and another 
silence, no less profound, fell on the chief speakers 
of the Orthodox party. 1 In this silence, the time 
was now come for the other counsellor of Constan- 
tine to come forward. On the left-hand side of the 
hall, Hosius of Cordova 2 rose, and announced the 
completion of the Faith or Creed of the Council of 
Mcaea. The actual Creed was written out 3 and read, 
perhaps in consideration of Hosius's ignorance of 
Greek, by Hermogenes, a priest or deacon of Cassarea 
in Cappodocia, who appears, at least on this occasion, 
to have acted as secretary to the Council. In the 
copies shown at the Council of Chalcedon, the 19th of 
June was the date affixed. 4 But this does not seem 
to have been formally incorporated in the Creed, in 
order (it was said) to avoid the inference that the 
faith which it professed was the creation of any single 
month or day. 5 

6 "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, The Creed 

of N"iC932U 

" Maker 7 of all things both visible and invisible : 

" And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
u begotten of the Father 8 , only begotten that is to say, 
" of the substance of the Father, God of God 9 , Light of 
" Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, 

1 Eustath. apud Theod. i. 8. 

2 Ath. ad Monach. 42 : ovtoq kv Nikcu^ tt'kttlv kZiQeTo* 

3 Basil, Epp. 81 and 244. 4 Mansi, vi. 957. 

5 This is contrasted with the precise date affixed by the Arians 
to the Creed of Ariminum. Ath. de Syn. c. 3, 4> 5. 

6 The parts which have since been added to the text of the 
Creed are inserted in the notes. The parts which have been since 
omitted are in italics. 

7 " of heaven and earth " 8 " before all worlds " 
» See p. 176. 

m 2 



6 4 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. IV. 



" being of one substance with the Father, by whom 
" all things were made, both things in heaven and 
" things in earth - — who for us men and for our salva- 
" tion came down 1 and was made flesh 2 , and was 
" made man 3 , suffered 4 , and rose again on the third 
" day 5 ; went up into the heavens, and is to come 
u again 6 to judge the quick and dead 7 . 
And in the Holy Ghost 8 . 

" But those that say, 4 there was when He was not, 1 
u and c before He was begotten He was not, 7 and that 
" c He came into existence from what was not, 7 or who 
" profess that the Son of God is of a different ' person 7 or 
u 4 substance 7 {Irspag v7rofTTa(Tsa>g rj ov(rlag 9 ) ? or that He 
" was created, or changeable, or variable, are anathe- 
" matised by the Catholic Church 77 

In this " the Faith set forth at Nicsea," we have 
the altered shape in which the Creed of Caesar ea was 
established as the Creed of the whole Church. Com- 
pared with the Creed of which it is a modification, or 
with the later enlargements of which mention shall be 
made presently, its most striking feature is extreme 
abruptness of form, which well indicates the desire of 

1 " from the heavens " 

2 " of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary " See p. 176. 

3 " and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and " 

4 " and was buried " 

5 " according to the Scriptures " 6 " with glory " 

7 " and of his kingdom there shall be no end." 

8 Here follows the addition, from the words "the Lord, the 
Giver of Life," to the words " the life of the world to come. Amen." 

9 Euf. i. 6 : " ex alia subsistentia, aut substantia." I have 
used " person " as the recognised equivalent of vTroaTaaiQ. The 
Authorised Version has "person" in Heb. i. 3, "substance" in 
Heb. xi. 1. 



Lect. IV. The Imperial Confirmation. 165 



its framers not to go a hair's hreadth beyond what 
was needed for the special occasion. 

To the Emperor it had been already exhibited in The impe- 
private, and was now doubtless exhibited publicly, mation. 
According to the Egyptian traditions 1 , the Bishops, 
on presenting him with the Creed, girt on his side the 
sword which he had given into their hands at the 
beginning of the Council, saying : — " This Christian 
" Eaith (or Creed) do thou now openly profess and de- 
•* fend." Fabulous as this story probably is, yet some- 
thing of the kind may have occurred as the basis 
of a like practice in 'the Russian Church when the 
Czar pronounces the Creed at his coronation. But 
there was a more substantial exemplification of 
the lesson which the story no doubt was meant to 
convey. Whether from the awe which Constantine 
entertained for the persons of Christian Bishops, or 
from his desire to enforce unanimity in the Church 
at any cost, he, now that the Creed was determined, 
entirely changed his tone respecting the doctrines 
against which it was levelled. With the rapidity 
with which some remarkable men even of high in- 
telligence and wide views throw themselves from one 
state of mind into another, seeing only for the time 
that which is immediately before them, and seeming 
to forget that they have ever held opposite language 
or opposite opinions, Constantine not only received 
the decision of the Bishops 2 as a divine inspiration, 
but issued a decree of banishment against all who 
refused to subscribe the Creed, denounced Arius and 
his disciples as impious, ordered that he and his 

1 Eutychius, i. 444. 2 Ruf. i. 5 ; Soc. i. 9, 30. 

m 3 



j 66 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. IV. 



books should follow the fate of the old Pagan Por- 
phyry; that he and his school should be called Por- 
phyrias, and his books burned, under penalty of 
death to any one who perused them. 1 

In the Council itself the feelings which the recita- 
tion of the Creed excited must have been various. 
To the more simple and illiterate of the assembly 
it probably conveyed the general impression of a 
noble assertion of the greatness and divinity of the 
Saviour of mankind. But the more learned dis- 
putants of Alexandria probably fixed their attention 
on the three debated points, (two of which have since 
dropped out of the Creed altogether,) namely, the 
Homoousion, the definition of the words " only be- 
gotten," and the anathema. To see how these 
portions would be received by those against whom 
they were aimed was now the great question. 
The sub- As the Creed of Mcsea is the first deliberate com- 

scriptions. p a • i p -r» • i 

position of Articles of .baitn, so the signatures at 
Mcsea form the first example of subscription to such 
articles. The actual subscriptions remained till the 
beginning of the next century 2 , and some imperfect 
lists have been preserved in various forms. At the 
head of all these lists is Hosius of Cordova : " So I 
"believe, as above written; " followed by the Bishop 
of Eome as represented by his two presbyters. " We 
" have subscribed for our Bishop, who is the Bishop 
" of Rome. So he believes as above is written." 3 
But the main question was whether those who 

1 Soc. i. 9, 31, 32. 

2 Epiph. Haer. lxix. 11 ; Jer. adv. Lucif. 20 (ii. 193). 

3 Spicil. Soles, i. 516. 



Lect. IV. 



The Subscriptions. 



67 



would have been satisfied to adopt the Creed of 
Eusebius without these additions, could be satisfied 
to adopt it with them. There was much hesitation. 
It is impossible at this distance of time, and with the 
imperfect accounts of the transaction, to judge how 
far the recusants were influenced by an attachment 
to the positive dogma of Arius, or how far they 
were sincerely scandalised by an expression which 
appeared to them to savour of Sabellianism or Mani- 
cheism ; or again how far their reluctance was occa- 
sioned by scruples of their own, or from fear of 
offending their constituents. Eusebius describes in Thesub- 
his own case what probably took place more or less Eusebius of 
in the case of many others. He took a day for con- Ca3sarea * 
sideration. 1 He determined to consult what we should 
call the "animus imponentis " — the mind of the 
imposer. This was easy enough. It was his own 
master, the Emperor. Constantine declared that the 
word, as he understood it, involved no such material 
unity of the Persons in the Godhead as Eusebius 
feared might be deduced from it. In this sense, 
therefore, the Bishop of Csesarea adopted the test, 
and vindicated his adoption of it in a letter to his 
diocese. The anathemas against the dogmatic state- 
ments of Arius presented perhaps a more serious 
difficulty. But here again Eusebius wrote to his 
Syrian flock that there was a sense in which he could 
fairly condemn the use of these expressions, even 
though he might agree in the truth which they had 
been intended to express. They were none of them 



1 Ath. de Dec. Nic. Syn. ii. 2. 
m 4 



i68 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. IV". 



scriptural terms, and as such were (so the Orthodox 
party themselves had justly pointed out) liable to the 
same objections as those which Eusebius and his 
friends had brought against the homoousion. And in 
this view he was further fortified by the suggestion of 
the Emperor, that in two of the expressions (" there 
. " was when He was not," and " before He was be- 
"gotten He was not"), taken literally, there was a 
contradiction with the doctrine held even by Arius 
himself, that the Son was begotten before all worlds, 
and that there must have been a potential existence 
even before the actual creation. With these reason- 
ings, which much resembled those which reconciled 
the Jansemsts to the Bull condemning the opinions 
of Jansenius, Eusebius satisfied himself, and hoped 
to satisfy his excitable congregation in Palestine. 
Others of the same, or even more extreme, views, 
including Paulinus, Menophantus, Patrophilus, and 
Narcissus, followed his example. They even sprang 
forward in eager repudiation of the condemned 1 
dogma. 

The sub- Eusebius of Nicomedia, with the two other Bithy- 
Eusebius of nian Bishops of Nicsea and of Chalcedon 2 , was less 
accommodating; indeed he had committed himself 
more deeply, both to Arius personally and to the con- 
demnation of the test. In this difficulty he consulted 
not the Emperor, but his own special patroness, the 
Princess Constantia, widow of Licinius, then living at 
Mcomedia. No doubt her views, though more de- 

1 Eustath. apud Theod. i. 8 : irp.oirric^aavTEQ apadejjari^ova-L ra 
aTTY]yopEvjji£vov doyfia. Hufinus (i. 5) makes 17 the first, and 6 the 
final, recalcitrants. 

2 Soc. i. 8. 



Lect. IV. 



The Subscriptions. 



169 



cideclly Arian 1 than her brother's, leaned to the same 
general conclusion of a wish for uniformity ; and she 
persuaded them to comply, urging (what, it is said, 
the Bishops themselves urged some years afterwards 
to Constantine himself) that they must be unwilling 
by their individual scruples to protract a controversy 
which had already caused him so much anxiety, 
and which, they feared, might, if continued, have the 
effect of driving him back in disgust to his original 
Paganism. 2 

There were two stories circulated in after times 
respecting this signature, which cannot both be 
literally true, but which curiously represent the feel- 
ings of the time. One, apparently proceeding from 
the Orthodox party, described how, in later years, 
Eusebius and his friends had bribed the keeper 
of the Imperial archives to let them have access to 
the documents of the Council, in order to erase their 
names 3 : and that Eusebius had then openly repu- 
diated the homoousion, and in the presence of the 
Emperor torn off a piece of his dress, and said, 
" What I thus see divided I will never believe to be of 
" the same substance." Another story proceeded from 
the extreme Arian party, savouring of that peculiar 
bitterness with which the more eager partisans of a 
failing cause attack its more moderate and more con- 
ciliating adherents. According to* them, the advice 
of Constantia took a more precise form. The fact, 
remarked by Gibbon, that the controversy between 
homoousion and homoiousion turned upon the use of 
a single letter, would naturally occur (so it was said) 



See Lecture VI. 



2 Soz. iii. 1, 9. 



3 lb. iii. 21. 



170 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. IV. 



to the quick mind of the Princess, not merely as a 
mental, but as a physical and literal solution of the 
difficulty; and accordingly Eusebius, Theognis, and 
Maris satisfied their consciences, and the wishes of 
their Imperial patron and patroness, by dexterously 
inserting an iota into the text of the Creed l , and then 
subscribing it without scruple. 
Banish- They still, however, refused their assent to the ana- 
Eusebius. themas, on the ground already noticed, that though 
the opinions condemned were false, they were not the 
opinions held by Arius, as they knew from personal 
knowledge of the man himself. This partial assent, 
however, did not satisfy the Emperor. Against 
Eusebius of Mcomedia there was, besides, a personal 
grudge, as having favoured the rebel Licinius. He 
and Theognis, therefore, were deposed from their sees, 
Amphion and Chrestus were substituted for them, and 
the edict of banishment was issued. Once more they 
entreated the powerful favour of Constantia, or of 
her party, with the Emperor ; and, on their sending 
to the Council a final submission and explanation of 
their difficulties, were received and subscribed all 
the decrees. The date of this last act is not easy to 
ascertain, but it must have been before the close of 
the Council. 2 

There remained only the extreme section of the 
Arian party — the Bishops Theonas and Secundus, 

1 Philost. i. 8. Sulp. Severus (ii. 40) says, probably from this 
story, that the Arians generally satisfied the Council by substi- 
tuting ofioi- for bfjLov-ovaiov. 

2 Soc. i. 14 (42); Theod. i. 19. The long negotiations about 
these Bishops seem to imply that at least a month must have passed 
between the drawing up of the Creed and the dissolution of the 
Council. 



Lect. IV. Banishment of the Recusants. 171 



Arius himself, the deacon Euzoius, the reader Banish- 
Achillas, and the presbyter Saras. Secundus seems Ar?us°and 
to have agreed in the general doctrine of the Creed, Sion^ mpa " 
but refused to sign the anathemas. He left the 
Council after an indignant remonstrance against 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, for his first subscription. 
u Thou hast subscribed to escape banishment, but 
" within the year thou shalt be as I am." His pre- 
diction was only partially fulfilled. The five com- 
panions were banished, indeed, in pursuance of the 
Imperial decree, to Galatia and Illyria. But in the 
rapid turns of fortune or of disposition which seem 
to have accompanied the decision of the Nicene Coun- 
cil, not unlike those at the period of the English Re- 
formation — they were, before the close of the assem- 
bly, recalled 1 , and were favourably received after sub- 
scription to the Nicene decrees. So we are informed 
by Jerome 2 , on the authority of old men still living 
in his time, who had been present at the Council, and 
of the authentic acts of the Council, where their 
names were still to be seen. 

Arius himself disappeared before the close of the 
Council. His book, Thalia, was burnt on the spot ; 
and this example was so generally followed, that it 
became a very rare work. Sozomen had heard of it, 
but had never seen it. 3 Constantine, also, if the 

1 It is not expressly stated that Theonas and Secundus were 
recalled before the end of the Council. Philostorgius (i. 8) says 
they were recalled afterwards when the Emperor became Arian. 
But the name of Secundus appears amongst the signatures. 
(Godef. adl.) 

2 Adv. Lucif. c. 20. So also Socrates justly infers from the 
letter of Eusebius and Theognis (i. 14). 

3 Soz. i. 22. 



172 



Lect.IV. 



letter be really liis, condescended to an invective 
against him, mixed in almost equal proportions of 
puns on his name, of jests on his personal appear- 
ance, of eager attacks upon his doctrine, and of 
supposed prophecies against him in the Sibylline 
books; and his letter (or documents corresponding 
to it), were posted up in the different towns of the 
empire. 1 Yet the immediate fate of Arius himself is 
involved in mystery. In the official letter of the 
Council to the Alexandrian Church, it is studiously 
concealed. In the traditions of the remote East, he 
was believed to have died on the spot, under the curse 
of Jacob of Nisibis. 2 But, in fact, he was allowed to 
return, to be received with Theonas and Euzoius, 
either before the conclusion of the Council, or shortly 
after, with no further penalty than a prohibition 
against returning to Alexandria. 3 A singular cus- 
tom in Alexandria commemorated this prohibition. 
There, alone, in Christendom, no presbyter was 
allowed to preach. 4 

1 Broglie (i. 398) places tins letter before the Council, relying 
on Epiphanius (Hser. lix. 9). But Epiphanius's account is evi- 
dently a confusion of the earlier with the later relations of the 
Emperor to Arius, and the testimony of Socrates (i. 9, 15) is de- 
cisive the other way : YLavr}yvpiKU)Tepov ypct^ug Travra^ov Kara 7r6Xsig 
TrpoaiQriKE, diaKU)fi(*)()wv Kal rio rrjg upiove'iag j]det diaj3a\\(i)v avrov. 
This passage (1) confirms the genuineness of the Emperor's letter; 
(2) gives some explanation of it, as a mere ironical and rhetorical 
display ; and (3) shows that it was written after the Council. 

2 Biblioth. Patr. v. p. civ. 

3 Hieron. c. Lucif. 20, ii. 192; Soc. i. 14, 2 ; Soz. ii. 16. 

4 Soc. v. 22 (298). Philostorgius (ii. 1) says that Alexander 
was induced by Constantine to subscribe a formula renouncing 
the hombousion ; that on this Arius communicated with him ; but 
that Alexander once more returned to his former position. 



Lect. IV. The Amnesty. 



173 



This general amnesty, after snch a struggle, and The Am- 
after the announcement of measures in appearance nesty * 
so severe, is to be ascribed to two causes. The first 
is that feeling of goodwill which I before 1 de- 
scribed, as the almost necessary result of any general 
gathering of men not wholly devoured by faction. 
The distance between Arius and Marcellus, on the 
two extremes, was so broken by the intervening 
stages of opinion, that it was probably found almost 
impossible to refuse to one shade of opinion what 
had been granted to another. In this respect the 
clemency of the Council of Nicsea stood out in strong 
relief against the severity of later Councils; the savage 
treatment of Nestorius at Ephesus, or of Huss at 
Constance ; and remained a standing protest, to which 
S. Jerome could justly appeal, against the harsh in- 
tolerance of the Luciferians, who, rather than receive 
a single Bishop tainted with Arianism, would have 
excommunicated the whole Christian world. 

But there was also another reason which facilitated The final- 
the amnesty in the case of the Nicene Council. It i«cene he 
is evident that both at the time and long afterwards Creed * 
their decision of the orthodox faith was looked upon 
as final. When, indeed, the Mussulman chroniclers 2 
imagine that the doctrines of Christianity, unsettled 
before, were settled once for all at Nicaaa, this is an 
exaggeration. But it is certain that the Creed of 
Mcsea was meant to be an end of theological contro- 
versy. The u Word of the Lord which was given 
" in the (Ecumenical Council of Nicaea," says Atha- 
nasius, " remaineth for ever." Those who had drawn 

1 See Lecture II. 2 Hist. Pat. Alex. 76. 



174 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. IV. 



it up were emphatically the fathers of Mcsea. To 
it was applied the text " Eemove not the ancient 
" landmark which thy fathers have set." 1 No addi- 
tion was contemplated ; it was of itself sufficient to 
refute every heresy. 

They believed, and their immediate successors be- 
lieved, that they were, under Constantine, beginning 
the final stage of the Church's history. This belief 
continued, even after the growth of new controversies 
and the convention of new Councils might have seemed 
to call for a new Profession of Faith. Particular 
Churches retained their special Creeds. But the 
Mcene Creed remained the one public confession. 
Sanctioned The Council of Sardica declared that it was amply 
Council of sufficient, and that no second Creed should ever 
Sardica, a pp ear> 2 When the next General Council met in 381 at 
by the Constantinople, although it had to confront two new 
Constanti- f heresies — those of Apollinarius and Macedonius, it 
nople ' did not venture to do more than recite the original 
Creed of Nicsea. The additions which now appear in 
that Creed, and which are commonly ascribed to the 
Fathers of Constantinople (those, namely, which re- 
late to the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit), did, 
probably, then make their appearance. But they 
were not drawn up by that Council. They are found 
seven years before in the writings of Epiphanius 3 ; 
and although they may have been put into the exact 
form in which we now see them at the Council, per* 
haps by Gregory of Nyssa 4 , they were not set forth 

1 Newman's note on Athanasius's Treatises, i. p. 19. 

2 Ath. Tom. ad Antioch, 3, 4. 

3 Epiph. Ancor. 120. * Niceph. H. E. xii. 3. 



Lect. IV. Finality of the Nicene Creed. 175 

as its Creed, and are first called by that name when 
quoted by the Imperial officers at Chalcedon in 43 1. 1 

The Council of Ephesus showed its sense of the by the 
finality of the Nicene Creed still more strongly. Ephesus. 
After reciting it aloud in its original simple form, 
they decreed, as if foreseeing the alterations to which 
the growing spirit of controversy might lead, that 
henceforward no one should " propose, or write, or 
" compose any other Creed than that defined by the 
" Fathers in the city of Nicsea," under pain of depo- 
sition from the clerical office if they were clergy, and 
of excommunication if they were laymen. It was broken b ^ 
not till the next Council, the Fourth General Council, of Chalce- 
at Chalcedon, that - the original exclusive supremacy 
of the old Nicene Creed was impaired. Then, for 
the first time, amidst much remonstrance 2 , the ad- 
ditions of Constantinople were formally acknowledged, 
and the enlarged Creed, in its present form, was 
received, though not as superseding the original 
Creed of the First Council, with a protest against 
any further changes. It is said that the ancient 
Eastern sects, both Monophysite and Nestorian, still 
bear witness to the fact, that no additions had, up to 
this time, been made. The Creed, as they recite it, 
is that of Nicsea alone. In the West, even as late as 
the seventh century 3 , it was retained in the Church of 
Spain. But the principle was broken through, and 

1 See the case clearly put in Tillemont, ix. 494. 

2 The remonstrances are given in Mansi, vi. 630, 631, 641 ; 
the adoption of the new Creed, vi. 958, vii. 22, 23 ; the prin- 
ciple of its adoption, vii. 114, 115. The difficulties are well given 
in Tillemont, xiv. 442. 

3 Mansi, x. 778. 



ij6 The Council of Nicsea. Lea. IV. 

the way was opened for still further modifications. 
The Constantinopolitan Creed, as set forth at Chal- 
cedon, gradually rose, from its co-ordinate position, 
into the place and name of the Creed of Nicaea. 
The original Arian controversy was now so far in the 
distance, that the polemical elements were regarded 
as unnecessary. Whilst its close was rounded into 
more ample proportions, it not only dropped some of 
the emphatic phrases defining the term " begotten of 
the Father," but also abandoned the anathemas 
against the condemned dogmas. 1 

In the West, even this form received yet further 
alterations. " God of God," was reinserted from the 
old Nicene Creed. " By the Holy Ghost of the 
Virgin Mary" was another variation. The abstract 
neutrality of the original (to xvpiov, ro ^wo-n-oiovv) was 
transformed into " Dominum vivificantem" in the 
Latin, and " the Lord and Giver of ~ Life" in the 
English version. " Holy, " as an epithet of the 
Catholic Church, probably from inadvertence, has 
been omitted in the English. " And the Son" has 
been added to the doctrine of the Procession delibe- 
rately throughout the West. 

Such have been the changes of the most unchange- 
able of all the Creeds. So slight a check has even 
the solemn decree of the Council of Ephesus been abla 
to place on the growth of controversy, and the 
modification of the work of the Council of Nicsoa,. 
That decree has often been quoted as a condemnation 

1 The only Church in the East, which, whilst adopting the 
Constantinopolitan Creed, retains the anathemas of the Nicene, 
is said to be the Armenian. Their last appearance in the West is 
in the Creed of Gregory of Tours. (Greg. Tur. i. 1.) 



Lect. IV. Changes in the Nicene Creed. 



77 



of the numerous confessions of faith which have in 
later times been introduced : the so called " Atha- 
nasian," in the seventh century ; the Tridentine, 
Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican Articles in the 
sixteenth. So far as these confessions are regarded 
as terms of communion, they no doubt (as Burnet 
urged in the case of the Athanasian Creed 1 ) run 
counter to the spirit of the Council of Ephesus. But 
the substitution of the Creed as set forth at Chalcedon 
for that set forth at Nicsea, though a less important, is 
a more direct, as it is a more universal, violation of the 
Ephesian decree. We might, if we chose, vex ourselves 
by the thought that every time we recite the Creed 
in its present altered form we have departed from the 
intention of the Fathers of Nicsea, and incurred de- 
privation and excommunication at the hands of the 
Fathers of Ephesus. But there is a more religious, as 
well as a more rational, inference to be drawn from this 
innovation. Every time that the Creed is recited, 
with its additions and omissions, it conveys to us the 
wholesome warning, that our faith is not of necessity 
bound up with the literal text of Creeds, or with the 
formal decrees of Councils. It existed before the 
Creed was drawn up ; it is larger than the letter of 
any Creed could circumscribe. 2 The fact that the 
whole Christian world has altered the Creed of Nicsea, 
and broken the decree of Ephesus, without ceasing 
to be Catholic or Christian, is a decisive proof that 
common sense, after all, is the supreme arbiter and 
corrective even of (Ecumenical Councils. 

1 Macaulay's England, iii. 473. 

2 Compare Dr. Thomson's Lincoln Sermons (xii.) and Dr. Tern-* 
pie's Essay on " The Education of the World," p. 41, 

VOL. I. N 



i 7 8 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 



LECTUEE V. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. 

Two questions remained for the decision of the 
Council, now nearly forgotten ; but one of them, at 
the time, occupying almost an equal share of atten- 
tion with the theological controversy just concluded ; 
the other, no doubt, to those who were specially con- 
cerned, as interesting, as to us it is tedious and 
trivial. 

The Pas- I. The first of these, in importance, if not in order 

chal Con- . ' . 1 ■ 5 

troversy. of discussion, was the question of Easter. It was the 
most ancient controversy in the Church. It was the 
only one which had come down from the time when 
the Jewish and Christian communities were indis- 
tinguishable. It was the only one which grew directly 
out of events in the Gospel history. Its very name 
(the " Quartodeciman," the " Fourteenth-day," con- 
troversy) was derived, not from the Christian or Gen- 
tile, but the Jewish, calendar. a The briefest statement 
of it will here suffice. Was the Christian Passover j 
(for the word was still preserved, and by the intro- 
duction of the German word " Easter," we somewhat 
lose the force of the connection) to be celebrated on 
the same day as the Jewish, the fourteenth day of the 
month Nisan ; or on the following Sunday ? This was 
the fundamental question, branching out into others 
as the controversy became entangled with the more 



Lect. V. The Paschal Controversy, 



179 



elaborate institution of the Christian fast of forty 
days, as also with the astronomical difficulties in the 
way of fixing its relations to the vernal equinox. On 
one side were the old, historical, apostolical traditions ; 
on the other side, the new, Christian, Catholic spirit, 
striving to part company with its ancient Jewish birth- 
place. The Eastern Church, at least in part, as was 
natural, took the former, the Western the latter, view. 
At the time when the Council was convened at Mcsea, 
the Judaic time was kept by the Churches of Syria, 
Mesopotamia, Cilicia, and Proconsular Asia; the 
Christian time by the Churches of the West, headed 
by Rome, and also, as it would seem, the Eastern 
Churches of Egypt, Greece, Palestine, and Pontus. 
It was a diversity of practice which probably shocked 
the Emperor's desire for uniformity almost as much 
as the diversity of doctrine. The Church appeared 
(this was the expression of the time) "to go halting 
" on one leg." 1 " The sight of some Churches fast- 
" ing on the same day when others were rejoicing, and 
u of two Passovers in one year, was against the very 
" idea of Christian unity." "The celebration of it on 
" the same day as was kept by the wicked race that 
" put the Saviour to death was an impious absurdi- 
" ty." The first of these reasons determined that 
uniformity was to be enforced,. The second deter- 
mined that the older, or Jewish, practice must give 
way to the Christian innovation. 

1. We know nothing of the details of the debate. 
Probably the combined influence of the Churches of 

1 Ath, ad Afros, c. 5 : ex^Xeve. 
n 2 



1 80 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 

Rome and of Egypt, of Hosins and of Eusebius, backed 
by the authority of the Emperor, was too great for re- 
sistance. It was sometimes said afterwards that the 
Council had made the selection of the day a matter 
of principle. But this was not the case. The only 
principle which had really guided them was, that, in 
a matter of indifference, the minority must give way 
TheDe- to the majority. 1 In one point the form of the Decree 
on Easter agreed with that of the Creed; no date 
was affixed. In another point it differed. Whereas 
the Creed was prefaced with the words, " So believes 
"the Catholic Church," — the Decree was prefaced 
with the words, which are also found in Constantine's 
letter 2 , " It has been determined by common consent" 
(s'So§£ xoivfj yi/ai/jt-y)), apparently to show that this was 
a matter of mere outward arrangement. And it was 
probably couched in this form, in order to avoid the 
necessity of imposing penalties on those who were at 
first reluctant to give up their ancient customs. 3 

The Decree took more immediate and undisputed 
effect than the Creed. Arianism, as we have seen, lin- 
gered long, both in the Empire and in the surround- 
ing nations. But the observance of Easter, from that 
time, was reduced to almosi complete uniformity. 
Cilicia had already given way before the Decree was 
issued. Mesopotamia and Syria accepted the Decree 
at a solemn Council held at Antioch within twenty 
years. 4 

1 Soc. v. 22 (64) ; an admirable and instructive passage. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 18. 

3 See Ideler, Technische Chronologie, ii. 204. 

4 Tillemont, vi. 666. 



Lect. V. The Paschal Controversy. 181 



Three small sects 1 , indeed, in each of those pro- 
vinces, still maintained their protest against the in- 
novation of the Nicene Council as late as the fifth 
century, almost after the fashion of the modern Dis- 
senters of Russia; abjuring the slightest intercourse 
with the established Churches which had made the 
change, and ascribing the adoption of the Mcene 
Decree to the influence of the Emperor Constan- 
tine, fixing the day to suit the Emperor's birthday, 
much as the corresponding communities in Russia 
ascribe the alterations 2 against which they protest 
'to the influence of Peter. But these were isolated 
exceptions. Through the rest of the Church the 
Jewish observance died out. Whatever subsequent 
troubles arose concerning the observance of Easter 
had no connection with this original diversity \ and the 
Mcene Council may fairly claim the credit of having 
extinguished at least one bitter controversy, which 
had once seemed interminable, and of laying down 
at least one rule, which is still observed in every 
Church, East and West, Protestant and Catholic. 

2. Even in details the mode of observance which 
still prevails was then first prescribed. Besides the 
original and more important question, whether the 
Paschal Feast should be observed on the Jewish or 
the Christian day, had arisen another question, occa- 
sioned by the difficulty of rightly adjusting the cycle 
of the lunar year ; from which it resulted that, even 

1 The Novatians of Constantinople (Soc. v. 23), the Audians 
in Mesopotamia (Epiph. Hser. 70), the remaining Quartodeci- 
mans in Asia Minor (ib. 50). See Hefele, i. 320, 321. 

2 See Lecture XII. 

N 3 



182 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 



amongst those who followed the more general Chris- 
tian practice, Easter was observed sometimes twice 
or three times, sometimes not at all. It was now 
determined, once for all, that the Sunday should be 
kept which fell most nearly after the full moon of 
the vernal equinox. For the facilitation of this ob- 
servance two measures were taken; one of which is 
remarkable as still guiding the calculations of Chris- 
tendom, the other as having given rise to an impor- 
tant custom long since obsolete. 
The table "What child is there that has not at odd moments 

for dis- . - 

covering turned over the leaves of his Prayer-book, to wonder 
at the table of the Golden Number, and the direc- 
tions to find Easter-day? That table first originated 
in the Council- chamber of Nicaea ; perhaps in the 
desire of the Emperor Constantine to soothe the 
wounded feelings of his favourite counsellor. When 
the task of adapting the cycle of the lunar year to 
the Paschal question was proposed, the Council 
would naturally turn to the most learned of its 
members to accomplish the work. That member was 
unquestionably Eusebius of Caesarea. 1 He had paid 
special attention to chronology; and his general 
knowledge was such as, in the eyes of the historian 
Socrates, of itself to redeem the assembly from the 
charge of illiterate ignorance. 2 He had just been 
sorely tried by the insertion of the unwelcome Homo- 
ousion into the Creed which he had proposed to the 
Council ; he was probably suspected of having given 
but divided assent to the Creed as it now stood. It 



1 Tillemont, vi. 668. 



2 See Lecture II. 



Lect. V. The Paschal Controversy. 183 



is creditable to the justice and the wisdom of the 
Council, that they should not have allowed their re- 
cent disputes and wide theological differences to stand 
in the way of intrusting this delicate task, as they 
must have thought it, to the man who, on general 
grounds, was most fitted to undertake it. 

He devoted himself to the work, and in the course 
of it composed an elaborate treatise on the Paschal 
Feast, which he presented to his Imperial master, 
who gratefully acknowledged it as a gigantic, almost 
inconceivable, enterprise 1 ; and gave orders that, if 
possible, it should be translated into Latin for the 
use of the Western Church. 

3. Whilst this work was preparing, and also for the The Festal 

Jj^ttcvs of 

sake of those whose arithmetical powers were unequal Alexan- 
to the calculation which it might involve, the Council dna ' 
looked to another quarter for immediate and constant 
help. If Eusebius of Csesarea was the most learned 
individual present, the most learned body represented 
at Nicsea was the Church of Alexandria. It is in- 
teresting to see how the ancient wisdom of Egypt 
still maintained its fame, even in Christian theo- 
logy. By a direct succession, the Bishops of Alex- 
andria had inherited the traditions of astronomical 
science, that first appear in the fourteenth century 
before the Christian era, on the painted ceilings of 
the temples of Thebes. On them, therefore, was im- 
posed the duty 2 of determining the exact day for 
the celebration of each successive Easter; and of 

1 Eus. V. C. iv. 34, 35. 

2 It had already existed as a custom. See Neale's Alex- 
andrian Church, i. 68. 

N 4 



8 4 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. V. 



announcing it for each following year, by special 
messengers sent immediately after the Feast of Epi- 
phany, to all the towns and monasteries within their 
own jurisdiction, as well as to the Western Church 
through the Bishop of Rome, and to the Syrian 
Church through the Bishop of Aiitioch. 

So absolute was their authority in this matter, 
that, even though they were certainly proved to have 
made erroneous calculations and fixed the festival 
wrongly, the Roman Bishop had no redress, except 
by appealing to the Emperor, and entreating him to 
admonish the Bishop of Alexandria to use more cau- 
tion, and so to preserve the whole Christian Church 
from falling into error. The first result of this 
arrangement is known to us in the " Festal," or 
" Paschal," Letters of Athanasius, who succeeded to 
the see of Alexandria the year after the decision of 
the Council. From that year, for a period of thirty 
years, these letters (preserved to our day by the most 
romantic series 1 of incidents in the history of ancient 
documents) exhibit to us the activity with which, 
amidst all his occupations, Athanasius carried out the 
order which he had heard, as a deacon, enjoined by 
the Council on his aged master Alexander. 

The Coptic Church still looks back with pride to 
the age when its jurisdiction was thus acknowledged 
by all Christian sees. Gradually the high position 
of the most learned of Churches has drifted to other 
regions. The Bishops of Rome, who once received 
from the Popes of Alexandria decrees unalterable 



* Preface to " The Festal Letters of Athanasius." 



Lect. V. 



The Melitian Schism. 



even by the Koman see, in their turn became 
the depositaries of science, and in their turn ac- 
cordingly reformed the calendar of the Christian 
world, and imposed it, gradually, but successfully, on 
the reluctant Churches, even of the Protestant con- 
fessions. And now the wave of learning in its onward 
movement has left Rome high and dry, as it had left 
Alexandria before ; and, if similar problems of mixed 
philosophy and religion have again to be imposed on 
the world by the most learned of its representatives, 
those representatives will now certainly not be found 
either in Italy or in Egypt. 1 

II. Another question which the Council had to The 

1 tian 

settle was that of the Melitian 2 schism. " I have not Schi 
" leisure," says Gibbon, "to pursue the obscure con- 
" troversy which seems to have been misrepresented 
u by the partiality of Athanasius, and the ignorance of 
" Epiphanius." Every one who has looked into the 
matter will feel the force of this remark. But, as there 
must have been a small knot of persons in the Council 
who were vehemently agitated by the question, we 
must briefly enter into its merits. 3 It began in one 
of those numerous difficulties belonging to a genera- 
tion which, at the time of the Council, was passing 

1 There is one point in regard to the settlement of the Pas- 
chal question, which seems entirely to have escaped the Nicene 
Fathers, but which, probably, owing to their want of foresight, 
will, with each succeeding century, widen the divergence between 
civil and ecclesiastical usages. How many collisions and compli- 
cations might have been avoided, had Easter been then, once for 
all, made a fixed, instead of a movable, festival ! 

2 MeXinoQ is the name in Athanasius, Me\r}no£ in Epiphanius. 

3 The three classes of documents on which this controversy 
rests are well set forth by Hefele, i. 337, 338. 



i86 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. V. 



away. "We often hear it said that the period of per- 
secution was a period of purity in the Church. This, 
unfortunately, must be taken with considerable re- 
servation. Whilst one class of evils was repressed, 
another class was provoked and aggravated. In 
the Christian world of the third century, a con- 
troversy arose out of the persecutions, which tended 
to embitter every relation of life, namely, the mode 
of treating those who, in a moment of weakness, 
had abjured or ' compromised their faith. No wea- 
pon of polemics, even in the Mcene Council itself, 
was so pointed as the charge or suspicion of hav- 
ing "lapsed." No allies were so important, even in 
the support of abstract theological or chronological 
speculations, as those who had " confessed " and suf- 
fered for the faith. The Novatian, the Donatist, and 
finally the Melitian schisms were so many phases of 
this excited feeling. Melitius was Bishop of Lyco- 
polis (Osioot), the present capital of Upper Egypt. 
He had taken the severer view of the cases of the 
lapsed, whilst his episcopal brother of Alexandria, 
Peter, had leaned to the milder side. The quarrel 
had broken out in prison. Peter, stretching out his 
episcopal mantle like a sail, had caused his deacon to 
proclaim, " Those who are for me, let them come to 
" me; those who are for Melitius, to Melitius." Each 
set up his own Church and succession of Bishops. 
Peter's communion in Alexandria retained the title of 
the " Church Catholic." 1 Melitius's, in distinction, was 
styled the " Church of the Martyrs." His orthodoxy 

1 The word was here probably used in its more restricted sense 
of " parochial/' " established," Church. See Pearson on the 
Creed (note on Art. ix.). 



Lect. V. 



The Melitian Schism. 



187 



was undoubted, and lie had the credit of having first 
called attention to the heresy of Arius. He was pro- 
bably one of those men who spend their lives in 
picking holes in the conduct or opinions of their 
neighbours, and who have so keen a scent for the 
weaknesses and the errors of others, that they never 
attend to their own. He became, with his following 
of independent Bishops, the head of a Nonjuring 
community, a thorn in the side of the Bishops, of 
Alexandria hardly less vexatious than Arius; and 
as years rolled on, and as increasing troubles made 
strange bedfellows, the Melitian schismatics and the 
Arian heretics 1 , once deadly enemies, became sworn 
allies against their common enemy Athanasius. 

This, however, was still far in the distance. The 
Council had to decide only on the facts of the case 
as they then were. They were gifted neither with the 
divine insight into coining events which could have 
enabled them to anticipate the future, nor with the 
wicked desire to push to their possible extremities 
all the tendencies of an innocent sect. They acted 
according to what at the time appeared the dictates of 
charity and prudence, and if, during the next thirty 
years, their judgment might seem to have been a 
mistake, by the end of the next century the total ex- 
tinction of the sect ratified its real and permanent 
wisdom. Melitius was to retain his title and rank 
in his own city, but not to ordain. Those ordained 
by him were to resume their functions after a se- 
cond ordination, and to take their places below those 

1 It is said, however, that before this (Epiph. Hasr. 69.) Theonas 
had been appointed by Melitius. 



1 88 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 

ordained by the Bishop of Alexandria. * Any future 
ordinations were to be made with the consent of the 
same authority. 1 

Melitius and his party belong to that prying, med- 
dlesome, intolerant class, who least of all men have a 
right to claim toleration at the hands of their oppo- 
nents or at the hands of posterity. Yet even cha- 
racters such as these must receive the just allowance 
which the^y deny to others ; and we may well admire 
the liberal treatment which they received from the 
Council of Nicaea. By what means it was brought 
about we know not . But we cannot err in supposing 
that it was agreeable to the general temper of Con- 
stant hie; and we may also conjecture that it was 
accelerated by the general respect for the venerable 
confessor Paphnutius, himself an adherent of the 
Melitian party. 

One person present must have been deeply mortified 
by this result. Athanasius, who up to this point had 
carried all before him, now saw a blow aimed at 
the supremacy of the see of Alexandria, which, both 
as the archdeacon of its Bishop, and the champion 
of its faith, he had so strenuously defended. After- 
wards, if not at the time, he revenged himself by the 
taunt 2 , which we now know to be the reverse of the 
truth, that Melitius had compromised himself by 
compliance with heathen sacrifices : " 0 that Meli- 
" tius had never been received by the Church ! By 
" some means or other," he says, with an unmis- 
takable bitterness 3 , " the Melitians were received, but 



1 Soc. i. 9. 2 See Hefele, i. 331. 

3 Atlian. Apol. c. Arian. 58, 71. 



Lect. V. 



The Canons. 



89 



" the reason I need not tell." He was clearly in a 
minority in the Council. However innch in his later 
life we may rejoice that Athanasms stood firm against 
the world, we may fairly rejoice that on this occasion 
Athanasms stood alone against the Church, and that 
the Church stood and prevailed against Athanasius. 

III. The main grievances of the Christian world, 
all more or less connected with the Church of Egypt, 
had been remedied. There still remained the correc- 
tion of abuses such as have ever since occupied, in 
name at least, the chief attention of every General 
Council. Little as is the notice that these regula- 
tions attract, compared with the special controversies 
which called the Council together, they have a pe- 
culiar interest of their own. They give us an insight 
into the customs and morals* of the age; and the 
extent to which they are observed or neglected now, 
gives us a measure of the nearness or of the distance 
of our relations to the Council. 

The Apocryphal Canons of Mcsea fill forty volumes. The Apo- 
They are translated into Arabic, and are received canons, 
by the Eastern Church as binding with the validity 
of Imperial laws. They are, in fact, a collection of 
all the customs and canons of the Oriental Church, 
ascribed to the Nicene Council, as all good English 
customs to Alfred. 1 But the authentic Canons are 
only twenty in number, filling only three or four 
pages. There are, indeed, a few points mentioned in 
connection with the Council, which are not contained " 
in these Canons. Four such usages are thus cited 
by the writers of the next two generations, namely : 
1 Hefele, i. 344—350. 



190 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. V. 



the injunction to offer the Eucharist fasting ; the 
permission 'of appeal from episcopal jurisdiction 
to the higher "apostolical" sees ; the revision of 
the decrees of former Councils by those that fol- 
lowed; the prohibition of second marriage to the 
clergy, and of two bishops in the same see. 1 
Decision of According; to an old tradition, the Canon of Scrip- 

the Canon & ' 1 



of Scrip . ture was now fixed. The Canonical and the Apocry- 
phal books were placed together near the Holy Table, 
with a prayer that the canonical might be found above 
and the others below. 2 This was no doubt a mere 
popular representation. It is a mark of the wisdom 
of the Nicene, and indeed of all the early Councils, 
that they never ventured to define the limits of the 
sacred books. But that some discussion on the 
subject took place, may be inferred from Jerome's 

The Book belief 3 that the Book of Judith was there and then 
recognised as canonical. Such a recognition, or 
even the belief in such a recognition, probably had 
great weight in determining for many centuries the 
reception of that most doubtful of all the Apocryphal 
writings. Nor has its reception been barren of results. 
It has answered the purpose of opening the minds of 
thoughtful theologians in the Church of Rome to the 
shades and degrees of canonicity and inspiration. In 
France, its perusal as a sacred book nerved the hand 
of Charlotte Corday to the assassination of Marat. 

From these doubtful points we proceed to the con- 
sideration of the twenty Canons, so far as they bear 
on the history of the Council. 



1 See the question discussed, Mansi, ii. 734 ; Broglie, ii. 428. 

2 Mansi, ii. 749. 3 Epist. iii. 



Lect. V. The Canons. 191 

They may be divided, for convenience, into four 
groupes : — 

1. Those which relate to clerical jurisdiction bring canons on 

. _ . Clerical 

out, more forcibly perhaps than any others, the 111- Jm-isdic- 
equality of observance which those ancient decrees 
have received. . They are the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 
15th, 16th, and 18th. 

The fifth Canon breathes an air of Ante-Nicene The fifth 

Canon. 

simplicity. It is intended to act as a check on the OaProvin- 

• t • n f t» • i , , cial Coun- 

tyranny of individual bishops, to guard against the ciis. 
unjust exclusion of any one from the Church through 
the party spirit (QiXovsixla), or the narrowmindedness 
(^/xpo^u^/a), or the personal dislike (a^S/a), of the 
Bishop of any particular diocese. To remedy this, 
all questions of excommunication are to be discussed 
in Provincial Councils to be held twice a year, once 
in the autumn, once before Easter, in order that the 
offerings at the Easter communion might be made 
with good consciences and good will towards each 
other. The whole of this machinery has necessarily 
passed away. But the Decree renders a striking 
testimony to the care with which the rights of in- 
dividuals were guarded, and to the belief in the 
ancient Evangelical doctrine of forbearance and for- 
giveness. 

The fourth Canon is still observed through the J he fom ' th 

° Canon. 

greater part of Christendom. It enjoined that, at OntheOr- 

° . . . dination of 

the consecration ("ordination," as it was then Bishops, 
termed) of a Bishop, no less than three Bishops 
should be concerned, as representing the absent 
Bishops of the province, who might be detained by 
pressing business or the length of the journey. On 



192 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. V. 



the observance of this Canon in the consecration of 
Archbishop Parker of Canterbury, on its neglect in 
the consecration of Archbishop Petersen of Upsala, 
depends the different degree of validity and regularity 
which is attached by scrupulous churchmen to the 
orders of the Church of England and of the Church 
of Sweden. 

The 6th, 7th, 15th, and 18th Canons, could we 
but look under their surface, each probably repre- 
sents a fierce debate, in which we almost seem to see 
the very combatants engaged. The two highest dig- 
nitaries in the Council were Alexander of Alexan- 
dria, and Eustathius of Antioch. The jurisdiction 
of the former had been assailed, as we have seen, by 
The sixth Melitius. It was this, probably, which led to the 

Canon. 7 x J 1 

OnthePri- sixth Canon, confirming to him and to his brother 

vileges of . . . 

Metro- Metropolitans whatever ancient privileges they had 



politans. 



possessed over the Bishops in their respective pro- 
vinces. In this Canon we see the first germ of the 
yet undeveloped Patriarchates of the East ; and, in the 
one precedent selected for such a jurisdiction, we see 
the organisation already formed of what was to 
become the Patriarchate of the West. " This," the 
Council says, " is to be laid down as is the custom in 
" the parallel case of the Bishop of Rome." 1 

In later times, and especially at the Council of Chal- 
cedon, this decree was made the ground of exalting the 

1 Rufinus (i. 6.) adds: "ut vel ille JEgypti, vel hie suburbica- 
riarum ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerat." By " suburbicariarum " 
was meant the churches of the Italian prefecture, specially under 
the vicariate of Rome, viz. S. Italy and the islands. Greenwood, 
1. 188. 



Lect. V. Canons on Clerical Jurisdiction. 193 



primacy of the Roman see above that of Constanti- 
nople, which of course had not been mentioned at 
Mcasa. But it is a remarkable inst ance of the cautious 
and deliberate spirit of the Nicene Council that the 
settlement of the jurisdiction refers to no grounds, 
historical or doctrinal, for its decision, but simply 
appeals to established usages, in words which have 
since become almost proverbial, " Let ancient customs 
" prevail " (rot apyjxioL Wrj xparsiTa)). 

This confirmation, limited as it was, of long pres- 
tige, naturally led to a claim on the part of another 
see, which was itself soon to aspire to an equality 
with the others, but now only sought a humble recog- 
nition of its former grandeur. The seventh Canon Seventh 
ran thus, and it discloses a slight passage at arms Relations 
between Eusebius of Csesarea and Macarius of iElia £X 
Capitolina, not yet "Jerusalem": — "As custom Ca3Sarea - 
" and ancient tradition have obtained that the Bishop 
" of JElia should be honoured, let him bear his 
"proper honour," — so far Macarius gained his 
point, — but (and here we cannot mistake the in- 
tervention of his superior, the Metropolitan of Caesa- 
rea,) "always saving the rights of the metropolis 
" tan." So closely was the ecclesiastical organisation 
framed on the arrangements of the Empire, that 
even the parent Church of Christendom could not 
take precedence even in the Holy Land, of the mere 
modern secular seat of the Roman government. It 
was the same spirit which guided William the Con- 
queror in his selection of the Norman fortresses, 
rather than the Saxon sanctuaries, as the sees of the 
bishoprics of England. But in this case we catch 

vol. 1. 0 



i 9 4 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. V. 



the relation of the sees of Csesarea and Jerusalem on 
the very edge of their turn. Before another ten 
years, iElia Capitolina had not only become Jeru- 
salem, but the Holy Sepulchre had been discovered, 
and Macarius was more than compensated for any 
concessions he may have made to Eusebius at Xi- 
caaa ; and by the next century his see had become 
a patriarchate, whilst Cassarea remained an inferior 
bishopric. 

Fifteenth The fifteenth Canon struck at a custom which 
Prohibition prevailed, as it would seem, largely even at that early 
tfon. ian!3la time, and which, in spite of this canon, was continued, 
and probably will continue as long as the Church itself. 
It prohibits absolutely the translation of any Bishop, 
Presbyter, or Deacon, from one city to another. 
There were at least two high personages in the 
Council who must have winced under this decree, the 
orthodox Eustathius of Antioch 1 , and the heterodox 
Eusebius of Mcomedia. But they would have had 
their revenge, if they could have seen how soon the 
decree would have spent its force. Eusebius himself, 
who had subscribed this very decree, was translated a 
few years afterwards from Mcomedia to Constantino- 
ple 2 , and it was thought so heroic a virtue in Eusebius 
of Cassarea to have declined a translation to the see of 
Antioch, that Constantine declared him in consequence 
fit to be a Bishop, not of a single city, but of the 
whole world. 3 By the close of the century it was set 
aside as if it had never existed, and there is probably 
no Church in Europe in which the convenience or 

1 Eustathius had been translated from Berrhoea, and Eusebius 
from Berytus. See Hefele, i. 404. 

2 Theod. i. 19. 3 g oz> H 19> 



Lect. V. Canons on Clerical Jurisdiction. 195 

the ambition of men has not proved too strong for its 
adoption. If the translation of Bishops has now 
become the exception, yet the translation, the pro- 
motion, of Presbyters and Deacons from place to 
place has been so common as to escape all notice. 

The eighteenth Canon, on the other hand, touches Eighteenth 

b ' Canon. 

an evil which has vanished, and hardly left a trace 
behind. Later ages have been accustomed to the 
domination of Popes, Bishops, Presbyters. But the 
Church of the Nicene age was vexed with the pecu- 
liar presumption of the order of Deacons. Being 
usually the confidential attendants of the Bishops, 
they were in the habit of taking their place among 
the Presbyters, and of receiving the Eucharist even 
before the Bishops themselves. This the Council of Restraint of 
Nicsea strongly reproves, and glances at certain 0 f Deacons, 
places and cities where the reproof was specially 
needed. One young Deacon, we know, there was pre- 
sent in the Council, whose prominent activity on this 
occasion provoked the envy of many of his superiors. 
But it is probable that the place specially alluded to 
was not Alexandria, but Rome. The Bishop Sylvester, 
as we have seen, was absent. But his two Presbyters, 
Victor and Vincentius, were present. We learn from 
Jerome how the Roman Deacons took especial ad- 
vantage of their master's dignity to lord it over the 
Roman Presbyters, and it is not too much to suppose 
that the two aggrieved Presbyters took the opportu- 
nity of urging what in the Bishop's presence would 
have been unnecessary or inexpedient. 

2. One regulation alone, the twentieth Canon, Twentieth 

fe ' ' Canon. 

related to worship : that which enjoins that on every Prohibition 

o 2 



196 



The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 



of kneeling Sunday, and in daily worship between Easter and 
days. Pentecost, the devotions of the people shall be per- 
formed standing. Kneeling is forbidden. The almost 
universal violation of this Canon in Western Churches, 
at the present day, illustrates our remoteness from 
the time and country of the Nicene Fathers. To 
pray standing was, in public worship, believed to 
have been an apostolical usage. It is still the uni- 
versal practice in the Eastern Church, not only on 
Sundays, but week days. But in the West kneeling 
has gradually taken its place ; and the Presbyterians of 
Scotland, and at times the Lutherans of Germany, 
are probably the only Occidental Christians who now 
observe the one only rubric 1 laid down for Christian 
worship by the First (Ecumenical Council. 

3. The Canons which relate to the manners and 
morals of the clergy naturally carry us back to evils 
long extinct. But they are all distinguished by a 
remarkable prudence and moderation; namely, the 
1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 17th. 

The 1st is aimed against acts 2 of excessive as- 
ceticism, which had led to scandalous consequences. 
The 2nd restrains the rapid transition of converts 
from heathenism to baptism, and from baptism to 
ordination. The 17th, with the strong feeling of 
those times against usury, forbids the clergy to 
make money by exorbitant interest. The 3rd 
Canon guarded against the scandals which might 
arise from the ancient practice of the intimate 

1 Rufinus (i. 6) omits it. 

2 See Bingham, xiii. 8 ; Beveridge, Synod, ad 1. note 44 ; 
Athan. Tracts, ed. Newman, ii. 250—252. 



Lect. V. Canons on Clerical Manners. 197 



companionship of the clergy with religious women *, The Third 
not bound to them by ties of close kindred, " who Prohibiting 
"were not their mothers, sisters, or aunts." But with reli- 
connected with this decree was an abortive attempt, Sen? Wo ~ 
which discloses to us one of the most interesting 
scenes of the Council. A proposition was made, 
enjoining that all married clergy (according to one 
report, including even subdeacons) were to separate 
from their wives. It was in substance the same mea- 
sure that was afterwards proposed and carried in the 
Spanish Council of Illiberis, and it is therefore not 
improbable that it was brought forward on this oc- 
casion by the great Hosius. It was also, we are told, 
supported by Eustathius of Antioch. 2 But every dis- 
tinguished member of the Council in turn seems to 
have met with a rebuff. The opposition came from 
a most unexpected quarter. From amongst the Protest of 
Egyptian Bishops stepped out into the midst, look- fg£nst UtmS 

0 1 . .. ill,- -i* clerical cell- 

ing out 01 his one remaining eye, and halting on his bacy. 

paralysed leg, the old hermit-confessor, Paphnutius or 

Paphnute. With a roar of indignation, rather than 

with a speech 3 , he broke into the debate : — " Lay 

" not this heavy yoke on the clergy. c Marriage is 

" honourable in all, and the bed un defiled.' By ex- 

" aggerated strictness you will do the Church more 

M harm than good. All cannot bear such an ascetic 

" rule. The wives themselves will suffer from it. 

" Marriage itself is continence. It is enough for a 

" man to be kept from marriage after he has been 

r ■ 

1 crvvsicraKTai, also Called aycnrrjTai. See Bingham, vi. 2, 13« 

2 Synod. Gangr. 4. (Hefele, i. 417.) 

3 Soc. i. 11 : ejjoa jua/cpct. 

o 3 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. V. 



" ordained, according to the ancient 1 custom; but do 
" not separate him from the wife whom once for all 
" he married when he was still a layman." His 
speech produced a profound sensation. 2 His own 
austere life of unblemished celibacy gave force to 
every word that he uttered ; he showed that rare ex- 
cellence of appreciating difficulties which he himself 
did not feel, and of honouring a state of life which 
was not his own. He has been rewarded by the 
gratitude of the whole Eastern Church, which still, 
according to the rule which he proposed, allows and 
now almost enjoins marriage on all its clergy before 
ordination, without permitting it afterwards. 3 The 
Latin Church has rushed into the opposite extreme ; 
but, owing to Paphnute's victory, must have been con- 
scious from the first that it was acting in defiance of 
the well-known intention and wise moderation of the 
Fathers of Nicgea. The story has been denied, and 
explained away. Even the candid French layman 
who has last written the account of the Council 
throws it into an appendix. 4 As early as the fifth 
century it is omitted in the one Latin historian 
of these events. But its authenticity is beyond dis- 
pute 5 ; and even in the West the wise Egyptian her- 

1 Apost. Const, vi. 17. 

2 James of Nisibis (if his Sermons are genuine) took the same 
view, Serm. xviii. s. 9, 383. (South, Opusc. i. 403.) 

3 It was an Egyptian tradition that the decree was carried 
so far as related to Bishops, the separation having been pre- 
viously enforced in regard to Patriarchs ; who, however, did not 
exist till long after the Council. Eutych. Ann. 450. 

4 Broglie, ii. 430. 

5 For the arguments against the genuineness of the story, and 
a candid and complete refutation of them, see Hefele, i. 417. 



Lect. V. Canons on Cases of Conscience. 199 



mit has not been forgotten. An aged cardinal, at the 
Council of Basle 1 (though, unfortunately, with less 
success than Paphnutius), expressed himself so nearly 
in the same way that we can hardly help supposing 
a reminiscence of this incident. Yet later, in the 
reign of Mary, when Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, 
was tried before the Bishops of London, Winchester, 
Durham, Llandaff, and Chichester, and the question 
of the marriage of priests was discussed, " My Lord 
" Chancellor and many with him cried out that Mas- 
" ter Hooper had never read the Councils. ' Yes, my 
" Lord,' quoth Hooper, ' and my Lord of Chichester, 
" to-day, knoweth that the great Council of Nice, 
" by the means of one Paphnutius, decreed that 
" no minister should be separated from his wife.' 
" But such clamour and cries were used that the 
" Council of Nice was not seen." 2 

4. The remaining decrees for the most part sprang cases of 
from the same agitations as those which had pro- s^nce. 
duced the Melitian schism. They were the settlements 
of cases of conscience which arose in dealing with 
those who had given way in the recent persecutions. 
They remind us that we are still on the border land 
between the persecuted and the established age of 
the Church. They steer for the most part the same 
middle course, as in the case of the Melitians. On 
the one hand, the offenders are rigidly excluded from 
the clerical office, yet gently admitted to communion. 
On the other hand, the austere Puritan or Novatian 
sectaries, who, like the Melitians, had separated 

1 Milman's Latin Christianity, vi. 260. 

2 Foxe (Wordsworth, Eccl. JBiog. ii. 452). 

o 4 



2oo The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 



Acesius. 



Hypatius 
of Gangra 



from tlie Churcli rather than communicate with their 
fallen brethren, are allowed to reenter the Church 
with reordination, or even to retain their orders in 
remote cities and villages. 

In this decree we can dimly discern two characters 
of the Council on opposite sides. One is Acesius 1 , 
who was then a Bishop of the Novatians, and who 
would doubtless defend the interests of his sect. The 
other is Hypatius of Gangra. He was probably a ve- 
hement opponent of the Novatians : for, many years 
afterwards, he was attacked by a gang of Novatian 
ruffians, in a pass near Gangra, and pelted and stoned 
to death. 2 The incident is curious, as showing the 
savage character of the sect. But, on this occasion, 
the modified reception of the Novatians by the Coun- 
cil may be considered as its final act of toleration. 
Amnesty. As every rule admits of an exception, so even the 
general amnesty of the Council (in the 19th canon) 
excepted from the general favour the small sect of 
the disciples of Paul of Samosata. " Synodus M- 
" csena," says Jerome, in his argument against the 
Luciferians 3 , " omnes hsereticos suscepit prseter Pauli 
" Samosateni discipulos." 

The Council had now completed its labours. The 
settlement of the Arian and the Paschal contro- 
versies was embodied in a letter of the Emperor to 
the Churches generally. The settlement of the Meli- 
tian controversy was expressed in a letter of the 
Council to the Churcli of Egypt. The Creed and the 
twenty Canons were written in a volume, and again 



Official 
letters and 
final sub- 
scription. 



i See Lecture III. 2 Menolog. March 31. 3 c. 26. 



Lect. V. 



Final Subscription. 



20I 



subscribed by all the Bishops. Some singular le- 
gends adorn this stage ' of the proceedings. It was Legend of 
believed in later times 1 that two of the 318 Bishops, Su7and 
Chrysanthus and Mysonius, who had entirely con- M y somus - 
curred in the views of the Council, had died before the 
close of its sessions, and been buried in the ceme- 
tery of Niccea. When the day for the final subscrip- 
tion arrived, the Bishops took the volume to the grave 
of the two dead men, addressed them, as Mussulmans 
still address their dead saints, and solemnly conjured 
them, that, if now in the clearness of the Divine Pre- 
sence they still approved, they would come and sign 
with their brethren the decrees of the Faith. They 
then sealed the volume, and laid it on the tomb, 
leaving blank spaces for the signatures, watched in 
prayer all night, and returned in the morning, 
when, on breaking the seal, they found the two sub- 
scriptions, " We, Chrysanthus and Mysonius, fully 
u concurring with the first Holy and (Ecumenical Sy- 
" nod, although removed from earth, have signed the 
" volume with our own hands." A bolder attempt to Legend of 
give a supernatural sanction to the decrees was re- anceofthe 
tained in another story 2 , preserved in the Alexandrian spint. 
Church, as derived from the courtiers of the Palace. 
" When the Bishops took their places on their thrones 
" they were 318 ; when they rose up to be called over 
" it appeared that they were 319 ; so that they never 
" could make the number come right, and when- 
u ever they approached the last of the series, he 
" immediately turned into the likeness of his next 



1 Niceph. H. E. viii. 23. 



2 Spicil. Solesm. i. 523. 



202 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. V. 



" neighbour." This truly Oriental legend expresses in 
a daring figure, what was undoubtedly the belief of 
the next generation of the Church, that the Holy 
Spirit had been present to guide their deliberations 
aright. 

We return to the actual history. The Emperor 
had now accomplished his wish. The three contro- 
versies had been extinguished. The Christian world, 
as he hoped, had been reduced to peace and unifor- 
mity. The twentieth anniversary of his accession 
was come round. The 25th of July, celebrated 
throughout the Empire with games and festivities, 
was appointed by him for a solemn banquet to the 
assembled Bishops. Not one was missing. The sight 
exceeded all expectation. The Imperial guards, who 
had not entered the chamber where the Council had 
been assembled, were now drawn up round the vesti- 
bule of the Palace with their swords drawn. The 
Bishops, many of whom had only seen the bare steel 
of the Roman swords in the hands of their execu- 
tioners and torturers, might well have started at the 
sight. Eusebius thinks it necessary to tell us that 
they passed through the midst of them without any 
signs of fear, and reached the room prepared for 
their reception, apparently the same as that in which 
they had met for debate. Instead of the seats and 
benches, couches or chairs or mattings 1 were placed 
along each side ; and in the midst was a table for the 
Emperor, with a favoured few. " It might have 
" seemed," says Eusebius, who no doubt was one of 
these, " the likeness of the kingdom of Christ — the 
i Theod. i. 10. 



Lect. V. Imperial Banquet. 203 

" fancy of a dream, rather than a waking reality." 
The Emperor himself presided, and, as the feast went 
on, called to him one Bishop after another, and loaded 
each with gifts in proportion to his deserts. Three 
are specially named, as marked out for peculiar 
honour. James of Nisibis (so ran the Eastern tale) Commend- 
saw angels standing round the Emperor, and under- James of 
neath his purple robe discovered a sackcloth garment. Nlslbls 
Constantine, in return, saw angels ministering to 
James 1 , placed his seat above the other Bishops, 
and said : " There are three pillars of the world, 
" Antony in Egypt, Nicolas of Myra, James in As- 
" syria." The two other incidents are as certainly 
historical, as this is legendary. Paphnutius was Honour of 
lodged in the Palace. The Emperor had often sent Uus. hnu 
for him to hear his stories of the persecution ; and 
now it was remarked how he threw his arms round 
the old man, and put his lips to his eyeless socket, as 
if to suck out with his reverential kiss the blessing 
which, as it were, lurked in the sacred cavity 2 , and 
stroke down with his Imperial touch 3 the frightful 
wound ; how he pressed his legs and arms and royal 
purple to the paralysed limbs, and put his own eyeball 
into the socket. Acesius, the Novatian, too, had Acesius, 
come at Constantine's special request; in the hope, tian N ° Va " 
no doubt, that the genial atmosphere of the Council 
would soften his prejudices against the Established 

1 Biblioth. Patr. p. civ. 

2 Theodoret (i. 10) speaks of the Emperor doing this to all 
who had lost their right eye ; but Rufinus (i. 4.) and Socrates 
(i. 11) fix it specially to Paphnutius. Gregory of Caesarea (De 
Pat. Nic. 316) names the banquet, but extends it to all. 

3 Pvuf. i. 4. 



204 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. V. 



Church of the Empire. It was probably on the 
occasion of this banquet that the dialogue took place 
which was reported to the historian Socrates by 
by the eye-witness Auxano. " Well," said the Empe- 
ror, " do you agree with the Creed and the settle- 
" ment of the Paschal question?" " There is nothing 
" new, your Majesty," replied Acesius, " in the de- 
u cisions of the Council; for it is thus that from the 
" beginning, and from the apostolical times, I have 
" received both the definition of the faith and the time 
" of the Paschal Feast." " Why, then," said the Em- 
peror, " do you still remain separate from the com- 
" munion of the Church ?" The old Dissenter could 
not part with his grievance; he intrenched himself 
within his unfailing argument ; he poured forth an 
animated description of the doings in the Decian per- 
secution, and of the strictness of primitive times, 
which the Church had surrendered. " None," he said, 
" who, after baptism, have sinned the sin, which the 
" Divine Scriptures call the sin unto death, have a 
" right to partake in the Divine mysteries. They 
" ought to be moved to perpetual repentance. The 
" priests have no power to forgive them ; only God, 
" who alone has the right to pardon sins." So spoke 
the true ancestor of the Puritans of all ages, — the 
true mouthpiece of that narrow spirit, which thinks 
itself entitled to pronounce on the sins which can 
never be forgiven ; which makes a show of charity in 
delivering over its adversaries to what are called, 
as if in bitter irony, the uncovenanted mercies of 
God. The Emperor, for once, was not overawed. 
His natural common sense came to the rescue. He 



Lect. V. The Emperor's Farewell. 205 



replied, with that short dry humour which stamps 
the saying as authentic : " Ho ! ho ! Acesius ; plant 
" a ladder, and climb up into heaven by yourself." 1 

These are the last actual words which we have 
from the Emperor on this solemn occasion, so charac- 
teristic, so full of instruction for the Puritans and 
sectarians of all times, that we might well take leave 
of him with those words on his lips. But quite in Farewell 
accordance with their general spirit is the farewell theEm-' 
speech, of which the substance only has been pre- peror ' 
served to us, made by him to the assembled Bishops, 
on one of the days immediately before their depar- 
ture. As they stood in his presence, he renewed, 
with the additional experience which the last 
month had afforded, his exhortations to mutual 
peace. "Let them avoid their bitter party strifes 
" [here, no doubt, he looked at the deputation from 
" Alexandria] ; let them not envy any one distin- 
" guished amongst the Bishops for wisdom [here he 
" would glance alternately at the detractors of Euse- 
" bius of Cassarea and of Athanasius] ; but regard 
" the merit of every single individual as common pro- 
" perty. Let not those who were superior look down 
" on their inferiors [here a look at Acesius] . God only 
" could judge who were really superior. Perfection 
u was rare everywhere, and therefore all allowance 
" must be made for the weaker brethren [here a glance 
" of commendation to Paphnutius] ; slight matters 
" must be forgiven ; human infirmities allowed for ; 
" concord prized above all else. Factions only caused 
" the enemies of the faith to blaspheme. In all ways 

1 Soc. i. 10. 



206 



The Council of Nicasa. 



Lect. V. 



" unbelievers must be saved. It was not every one 
" who would be converted by learning and reasoning 
" [here he may have turned to Spyridion and the 
" philosopher]. Some join us from desire of main- 
" tenance [this he said, in accordance with a well- 
" known principle which he was wont to commend] ; 
" some for preferment ; some for presents : nothing is 
" so rare as a real lover of truth. We must be like 
u physicians, and accommodate our medicines to the 
u diseases, our teaching to the different minds of 
" all." 1 Finally, he begged their earnest prayers to 
Heaven for himself ; and dismissed them on their 
journey to their several homes with letters to all the 
provinces through which they passed, with the in- 
junction to celebrate his own twentieth year by 
liberal support to the returning prelates. He also 
ordered that in every city a yearly allowance of 
provisions should be made for the widows and 
nuns and other sacred ministers. This endowment 
lasted, though in a diminished amount, to the mid- 
dle of the fifth century. 2 

Another decree ordered that corn should be ex- 
ported to those countries where it was rare, for the 
purpose of the sacramental elements. This led after- 
wards to violent recriminations between the Arians 
and Athanasius, as the head of the great corn-country 
of Egypt. 3 

Before the end of August, Nicaea was restored to 

1 Eus. V.C. iii. 21. 

2 It was suspended by Julian, and reduced to one third by 
Jovian. Theod. i. 11. 

3 See Lecture VII., and Tillemont, viii. 32. 



Lect. V. Departure of the Bishops, 



207 



its former state. But the fame of the Council still Honours 
lingered on the spot. It was said that they had met Nicsea. 
for the last time in a building in the centre of the 
town — probably the same as that which had re- 
ceived them on their first arrival — to pray for their 
own safe return and for the welfare of the city. Tradi- 
tion pointed out a spring, which was believed to have 
sprung up in consequence in the centre of the apse. 1 
When the Arians held a synod at Nice in Thrace, 
it was in the hope that under the common name of 
the Nicene Creed their own views might receive a 
better reception. 2 When the Fourth General Council 
was summoned, it had been the Emperor Marcian's 
first wish to have it, not at Chalcedon, but within the 
sacred walls of Nicaaa. The last Council which has 
been acknowledged as oecumenical both by the Greek 
and the Latin Church received no doubt additional 
weight from its being held at Nicaea, the scene of the 
first and greatest of them all. It was supposed to 
have given the city impregnable strength when at- 
tacked by the Persians. When a prisoner was taken 
who came from Mcaea, it was a security for his being 
well treated by his captors. 3 

The prelates returned, as they went, at the public ^ e £ a J fcure 
expense. Some, it is said, were specially commis- Bishops, 
sioned to carry the decrees of the Council to the 
different provinces of the Empire The only recep- 

1 Greg. Cses. 365. For the supposed inspiration of these 
parting prayers and acclamations see Sarpi's History of the 
Council of Trent, ii. 747. 

2 Soc. ii. 29. See Mansi, ii. 727. 

3 Tillemont, vi. 287. The Council, afterwards divided into 
the two of Ariminuni and Seleucia, was to have met at Nicasa. 
Theod. ii. 26 ; Soz. iv. 16. 



208 



The Council of Nicasa. Lect. V. 



^ e t c h e P tlon tion of which any detailed 1 mention is preserved, is 
Decrees. ^hat m Armenian Church. Aristaces is said 
to have met his father Gregory and King Tiri- 
dates at Velasabata, and delivered to them the 
Mcene Canons. 2 To these Gregory added a few 
rules and then retired into a mountain cave, and 
never appeared again, leaving the diocese to Ari- 
staces. The hymn of praise said to have been used 
on occasion of this event is still preserved in the 
Armenian Church 3 : We glorify Him who was before 
" all ages, adoring the Holy Trinity, and the one 
" only Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
" Ghost, now and ever, through ages of ages. Amen." 

The day celebrated in the different Churches as 
the anniversary of the Council was probably that on 
which these decrees and letters were published. 

Two legends, characteristic of the Churches of the 
East and West, mark the interest which each attached 
to the reception of these decrees. When they arrived 
at Rome, so runs the Latin story, Sylvester convened, 
with Constantine's consent, another Council of 277 
Bishops, in which the Nicene decrees were enforced 
by the Pope's authority, and in which a number of 
minute regulations were inserted, descending even 
to the material of which the dress of Eoman deacons 
was to be made. 4 It is one of the fables by which 
the Roman Church has endeavoured to establish a 

1 The names are given in Photius, Biblioth. 471 ; Gelas. iii. 27. 

2 Moses Choren. ii. 87, 88. 

3 I am glad to refer for this quotation to the compendious 
but learned History of the Fourth Century, by the Eev. W. Bright, 
p. 27. 

4 Anast. Vit. Pont. p. 36. 



Lect. V. 



Its Close. 



209 



precedent for its authority over Councils, as the like 
fables of the Donation of Constantine, and the false 
Decretals, were intended to establish its authority 
over princes and kingdoms. Like all such fables it 
recoils on its framers. The best proof that no such 
authority existed is the necessity of so manifest a fic- 
tion to supply the place of facts. 

The Eastern legend is far more pleasing, and mav Legend of 

° - f t t» death 

possibly have some slight foundation of truth. Be- of Metro- 
fore the Bishops finally left Mcasa, Constantine, it Byzantium 
was said, announced that he had one favour to beg. 
They granted it. It was that they would return 
with him to Byzantium to see Metrophanes, the aged 
Bishop of that city, whom he called his father ; and 
to bless by their presence the new city which he was 
about to found. 1 They came ; and on the Sunday 
they met both the Emperor and the Bishop of the 
future capital of the Eastern Church. The Emperor 
then adjured the aged prelate to name his successor. 
Metrophanes replied, with a smiling countenance, 
that a week since it had been intimated to him in a 
dream, how ten days from that time his end would 
come, and he accordingly named Alexander of By- 
zantium his successor, and the boy Paul 2 to be the 
successor of Alexander. Then turning to the Bishop 
of Alexandria: "You too, my brother," he said, 
"shall have a good successor." And, taking the 
young deacon Athanasius by the hand : " Behold," 
said he, " the noble champion of Christ ! Many con- 

1 " Which he had founded," is the version in Photius. < { To 
make it a patriarchal city," Hist, of Alex. Patr. 79. 

2 See Lecture III. p. 123. 
VOL. I. P 



2IO 



The Council of Nicaea. 



Lect. V. 



" flicts will lie sustain, in company not only with 
u my successor Alexander, but even with my next 
" successor Paul." With these words he laid his 
pall on the Holy Table for Alexander to take; 
and in seven days afterwards, on the 4th of June, 
expired in his 117th year. 1 Such, according to the 
Byzantine tradition, was the inauguration of the two 
next great events of Eastern ecclesiastical history, 
the Foundation of the City and Church of Constan- 
tine, and the Commencement of the Pontificate of 
Athanasius. 

So ended the Council of Nicaea. There remain 
some general inferences to be deduced from this de- 
tailed account of its history, 
onnc-d^nts ^' fragmentary as tne narrative has been, every 
in the one must have observed how various are the inci- 
dents that it embraces. Every party has had its 
turn ; every one, as the story has gone on, must have 
heard something, I trust, congenial to his own predi- 
lections; something also, I trust, which has been 
distasteful. This is as it should be. This it is which 
makes us sure that we are reading, not a mere con- 
ventional legend, but a real chapter of human life ; 
grave and gay, high motives and low, wise sayings 
and foolish. This also makes us feel that we are still 
far back in the first ages of the history of the Church. 
The elements of thought and feeling which at Ephe- 
sus, at Chalcedon, at the Second Council of Mcaea, at 
Florence, or at Trent, are narrowed into a sino-le- 
channel, or excluded altogether, are here all blended 
in one mixed stream. Every Church feels that it has 

1 Photius, Biblioth. p. 472. 



Council. 



Lect. V. 



Its Lessons. 



21 



some standing place in the Council Chamber at Nicaea. 
In this the highest sense, the Council was truly 
(Ecumenical. 

2. It is impossible not to notice the powerful Effect of 
influence exercised over the results of the Council by characters, 
personal character. Take away Constantine, Atha- 
nasius, Eusebius of Csesarea, Hosius, Paphnutius, — 

and how materially its conclusions would have 
varied! It is a truth enforced upon us both by 
history and experience, yet often put aside by theo- 
logical speculations in former days, and by philo- 
sophical speculations in the present. 

3. I have before spoken of the advantage of con- contrast of 
trasting the later apocryphal representations of the aMWsTo 7 - 
Council with the earlier ones. We have now seen ™^ t g*" 
what the contrasts are. We have seen the profusion 

of miraculous portents, fanciful legends, and rhetorical 
exaggerations in the later versions, compared with 
the simplicity and the vividness of the old accounts. 
We see also how the claims of the Eoman Church, 
so highly exalted in the later Eoman annals, have 
no place in the true contemporary accounts of the 
Council. In the descriptions of Eusebius and Atha- 
nasius, the Bishop of Kome is an old man kept away 
by illness, who would have had a high, perhaps the 
highest, place, as Bishop of the capital city, if he had 
been there. This is all. The later additions represent 
the Council as convened by him, its decrees as con- 
firmed by him, and a separate Council as convoked 
by him at Rome to receive them. By the difference 
between the two statements, we can judge of the dif- 
ference between the earlier and the later systems. 

p 2 



212 



The Council of Nieaea. Lect. V. 



Again, in the earlier accounts, the heathen philoso- 
phers are attracted by curiosity; in the later, they 
are hired by the Arians : in the earlier, the mutual 
complaints are made by the Orthodox Bishops; in 
the later, they are made by the Arians. By the 
difference between the two accounts, we can judge 
of the growth of theological calumny. 
Settlement 4. Finally, let me briefly touch on the settle- 
logicalcon- ment of the general controversies which gave occa- 
roversies. g . Qn ^ ^ e Council's convention. They may have 
seemed, perhaps, a wearisome study, but they still 
leave solid lessons and truths behind. " Old religious 
"factions/' says Burke, u are volcanoes burnt out: 
u on the lava and ashes, and squalid scoriae of extinct 
" eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine, 
" and the sustaining corn." Most true is this in the 
present instance. The Eastern Creed of Nicsea, 
indeed, as compared with that of the Western Church, 
'commonly called the Apostles', is a controversial and 
elaborate composition; and we may justly rejoice that 
it is the Apostles' Creed, rather than the Mcene, 
which has been chosen by the English Church as its 
one test of membership and communion. But as 
compared with almost all subsequent Creeds, — as 
compared even with the Creed (so called) of Constan- 
tinople 1 ; still more, as compared with the precise 
definitions of Ephesus and Chalcedon ; still more, as 
compared with the Creed (so called) of Athanasius; 
still more, as compared with the modern confessions 
of Eoman Catholic and Protestant Churches, — the 



1 See Lecture V. p. 176. 



Lect. V. 



Its Lessons. 



213 



Mcene Creed is simple, moderate, and comprehensive. 
Only one technical word is incorporated in its lan- Nicene 
guage ; other words relating to the subtle controversies bulwark 
of the age — " Perichoresis," " Probole," " Theotocos," ggmatis 
even " Hypostasis " (except in a phrase which it 
condemns) — have no more place in it than if they had 
never existed. The anathemas, indeed, represent the 
passions of the time, and as such have long been 
discarded. But even they might fairly be taken, as 
Eusebius and Constantine took them, as protests 
against the excessive definitions of the opposite party, 
against the exaggerated inferences drawn by Arius 
and his followers from figures and metaphors, which, 
in relation to the invisible world, can never be 
pressed literally without extreme danger to the cause 
of truth and faith. Those who regret, with the late 
Bishop Kaye, that the Council went too far, may 
console themselves with the reflection that it went no 
farther. In hardly any subsequent age of the Church 
should we have fared so well. To Calvin the very 
pathos and solemnity of the Creed seemed but as a 
dull repetition. For homoousios he would have sub- 
stituted the -not less dogmatic and more barbarous 
word, autotheos. The decree of Ephesus, forbidding 
the introduction of any new Creed 1 , well expresses the 
sense which the Church of that age entertained of 
the growing dangers of theological disputation. That 
decree was afterwards set aside in the letter by 
the Council of Chalcedon, and in the spirit by many 
subsequent acts of the Church. But the decree itself 



1 See Lecture V. p. 175. 
p 3 



2i4 The Council of Nicaea. Lect. V. 



remains as a venerable and sure indication of the 
mind of Eastern, if not of Catholic, Christendom ; and 
the original Creed of Nicaaa, though almost overlaid 
by the Confessions of later ages, yet still, even in its 
altered form, may be regarded as the standing bul- 
wark and protest of the Church against an excessive 
spirit of dogmatism, 
and of But the work of the Council of Mcasa has been 

Orthodoxy. justly regarded as a bulwark of the Orthodox 
faith. Luther, with the felicity of expression which 
so often distinguished his short sayings, described the 
Homoousion as a propugnaculum jidei, not the faith 
itself ; not the actual citadel, but its outpost in the 
enemy's country. Such is the light in which the word 
was regarded by Athanasius himself. 1 He and 
those who acted with him were eager to make a stand 
somewhere against the infringement of the received 
ideas of the Divine Nature; and the truth, of which 
this particular form was an expression, and round 
which this special controversy raged, was held by 
them to be the central truth of Christianity. This 
is not the place to discuss so grave a question as the 
proportion of the doctrines of religion, " the analogy 
" of faith." First, and above all, stand those great 
moral doctrines of the Gospel to which the highest 
place has been assigned beyond dispute in the Gospel 
itself. But, next after these, ecclesiastical history 
teaches us that the most vital, the most comprehen- 
sive, the most fruitful, has been, and is still, — -not the 
supremacy of the Bible or the authority of its several 

1 So Ath. de Sjn. 45 : warwep ETrirelxMTjjLa Kara TraarjQ aaifiovQ 

ETTIVOICLQ UVTWV. 



Lect. V. 



Its Lessons. 



215 



books, not the power of the Pope or of the Church, 
not the Sacraments, not Original Sin, not Predestina- 
tion, not Justification, but the doctrine of the In- 
carnation. 1 And it is a a pregnant fact that this 
doctrine, and none of those just named, which have 
each in their turn been by different sections of the 
Church regarded as the pivots of theological contro- 
versy, was the one which exclusively engaged the 
attention of the Fathers of Mcgea. 



1 See Lecture VII. 



216 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



LECTUKE VI. 

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. 



The authorities for the Life of Constantine are as follows : — 
I. Ancient. 

1. Lactantius. (De Mort. Persec.) a.d. 250—330. 

2. Eusebius. a.d. 264—340. 

a. Life of Constantine. 

b. Panegyric on Constantine. 

c. Constantine's Address. 

3. The Letters and Treatises of Athanasius. A.D. 

296—373. 

4. Eumenius. (Panegyric at Treves.) a.d. 310. 

5. Nazarius. (Panegyric at Rome.) a.d. 321. 

6. Julian. (Cassars.) a.d. 331—363. 

7. Eutropius. a.d. 350 ? 

8. Aurelius Victor. (Epitome.) a.d. 370 ? 

9. Zosimus. a.d. 430 ? 

II. Modern. Of these may be mentioned specially : 

1. (German.) 6i The Life of Constantine the Great," 

by Manso. (1817.) 

2. (French.) "The Church and the Empire/' by 

Albert Prince de Broglie ; of which the Life of 
Constantine is the most remarkable portion. 



In describing the Council of Nicsea, I spoke of two 
celebrated men, each a pillar of the Eastern Church, 



Lect. VI. His historical Position, 217 

each claiming also a place in general ecclesiastical 
history. One was the Emperor Constantine, the 
other was the Archdeacon Athanasius. 

The Emperor Constantine is one of the few to Historical 
whom has been awarded the name of " Great." constant 
Thongh this was deserved rather by what he did, tme * 
than by what he was;— though he was great, not 
among the first characters of the world, but among 
the second; great like Philip, not like Alexander; 
great like Augustus, not like Caesar ; great with the 
elevation of Charlemagne or Elizabeth, not with the 
genius or passion of Cromwell or of Luther ;— yet 
this gives us a stronger sense of what the position 
was which could of itself confer such undoubted 
grandeur on a character less than the highest. " It 
u is one of the most tragical facts of all history," 
says Mr. Mill, " that Constantine, rather than Marcus 
" Aurelius, was the first Christian Emperor. It is a 
" bitter thought how different the Christianity of the 
" world might have been, had it been adopted as 
" the religion of the empire under the auspices of 
" Marcus Aurelius, instead of those of Constantine." 1 
The whole history of the fourth century should be 
read in the light of that sad reflection, because it 
serves both to hold up to us the ideal of what the 
Christian Church and Christian theology might have 
been, and to remind us of what, under the existing 
conditions, it must have been, and actually was. 

But although Constantine was not Marcus Au- 
relius, nor S. Louis, nor Gustavus Adolphus, yet 



1 Essay on Liberty, p. 58. 



2i 8 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



Subject of there is a profound interest in his imperfect complex 
cHtidsm!^ character, which renders it peculiarly interesting as 
a subject of theological study. Over his virtues and 
vices the Pagans and Christians quarrelled during 
his lifetime. " You may believe safely," says the 
candid Fleury, "whatever Eusebius the bishop has 
" said in his blame, or Zosimus the heathen in his 
" praise." The Orthodox and the heretics have each 
claimed him; and a great writer in our own time, 
though in one of his least remarkable works, has 
even gone so far as to avow that the services of 
Constantine to the Church ought to have closed the 
door against all censures of his character, had not 
his patronage of heresy restored to us the right of 
freedom of speech. 1 In the estimate of his character 
the Greek and Latin Churches have each a stake. 
The Eastern Church, regarding him as especially her 
own, has canonised him as a saint, "equal to the 
" Apostles." The Latin, at least the modern Latin, 
Church prides herself on superior discernment. Yet 
she also has, as we shall see, a dark corner in the 
story of Constantine ; and, if the Eastern Church 
were to recriminate 2 , there would be no difficulty 
in finding parallel blots in the founder of Western, 
as Constantine was of Eastern, Christendom, the 
" beatified," though not " canonised," Charlemagne. 
Connection Nor is his life without a special connection with 
Iiasticai Cle " the history of our own Church. To English stu- 
Engiandf dents I cannot forbear recalling that he was, if not 
our fellow-countryman by birth, yet unquestionably 

1 Newman's History of the Arians, p. 138. 

2 See Mouravieff, Question Keligieuse, ii. 16. 



Lect. VI. His Appearance. 219 

proclaimed Emperor in the Prastorium at York. 
He probably never visited onr shores again. Yet 
the remembrance of that early connection long con- 
tinued. It shaped itself into the legend of his 
British birth, of which, within the walls of York, 
the scene is still shown. His father's tomb was 
pointed out in York till the suppression of the 
monasteries. His mother's name lives still in the 
numerous British churches dedicated to her. London 
wall was ascribed to him. One argument pleaded 
by the English ecclesiastics for precedence in the 
Councils of Constance and Basle was that Constan- 
tine had been a born Englishman. 

I have already described him as he appeared in the His per- 
Council of Nicsea. Handsome, tall, stout, broad- pearance. 
shouldered, he was a high specimen of one of the 
coarse military chiefs of the declining Empire. 
When Eusebius first saw him 1 , as a young man, on a 
journey through Palestine before his accession, all 
were struck by the sturdy health and vigour of his 
frame; and Eusebius perpetually recurs to it, and 
maintains that it lasted till the end of his life. In 
his later days, his red complexion and somewhat 
bloated appearance 2 gave countenance to the belief 
that he had been affected with leprosy. His eye 
was remarkable for a brightness 3 , almost a glare, 
which reminded his courtiers of that of a lion. He 
had a contemptuous habit of throwing back 4 his head, 
which, by bringing out the full proportions of his 



1 V. C. i. 19, 20. Compare Lact. de Mort. Perse c. c. 18. 

2 Cedrenus, 269. 3 Ibid. 269. 
4 Aurelius Victor, Epit. 224 ; Manso, p. 412. 



220 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. vi. 



thick neck procured for him the nickname 1 of Tra- 
cliala. His voice was remarkable for its gentleness 
and softness. 2 In dress and outward demeanour the 
military commander was almost lost in the vanity 
and affectation of Oriental splendour. The spear 3 of 
the soldier was almost always in his hand, and on his 
head he always wore a small helmet. But the hel- 
met was studded with jewels, and it was bound round 
with the Oriental diadem, which he 4 , first of the Em- 
perors, made a practice of wearing on all occasions. 
His robe was remarked for its unusual magnificence. 
It was always of the Imperial purple or scarlet, and 
was made of silk, richly embroidered with pearls and 
flowers worked in gold. 5 He was especially devoted 
to the care of his hair 6 , ultimately adopting wigs of 
false hair 7 of various colours, and in such profusion 
as to make a marked feature on his coins. 8 First of 
the Emperors, since Hadrian, he wore a short beard. 

He was not a great man, but he was by no means 
an ordinary man. Calculating and shrewd as he was, 
yet his worldly views were penetrated by a vein of 
religious sentiment, almost of Oriental superstition. 
He had a wide view of his difficult position as the ruler 
of a divided Empire and divided Church. He had a 
short dry humour which stamps his sayings with an 
unmistakable authenticity, and gives us an insight 
into the cynical contempt of mankind 9 which he is 

1 Cedrenus, 269 : Tva^vg tov fpayrfkov. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. 9. 3 Ibid. iv. 30. See p. 245, infra. 

4 Aurelius Victor, Epit. p. 224 ; Cedrenus, 295. 

5 Eus. Laud. Const, c. 5. 6 Cedrenus, 209. 
7 Julian, Cses. 335, 336. 8 Eckel, viii. 72. 
9 Eus. Laud. Const, c. 5 ; Aurelius Victor, Epit. p. 224. 



Lect. VI. 



His Character. 



221 



said to have combined, by a curious yet not uncom- 
mon union, with an inordinate love of praise. He 
had a presence of mind which was never thrown off 
its guard. One instance, at least, he showed of 
consummate foresight and genius. He had the ca- 
pacity of throwing himself, with almost fanatical 
energy, into whatever cause came before him for the 
moment. 

We have seen from his dress, and we see also 
from his language, that he was not without the 
wretched affectation which disfigured the demeanour 
of the later Emperors. 1 Against one great old Roman 
vice, that of voracious gluttony, he struggled, but 
struggled in vain. 2 The Christian accounts all speak 
of his continence. Julian alone insinuates the con- 
trary. 3 It was only as despotic power and Eastern 
manners made inroads into the original self-control 
of his character that he was betrayed into that dis- 
regard of human life, in his nearest and dearest rela- 
tionships, which, from the same causes, darkened the 
declining years of the Grecian Alexander and the 
English Henry. 

It will be my object in the following Lecture to 
trace this character through three epochs of his ec- 
clesiastical life : as the first Christian emperor ; as 
the first example of the intervention of a sovereign 
power in the internal affairs of the Church; and in 
his relations towards the Western and Eastern 
Churches. These aspects are in fact more or less 
represented by the three periods of his reign, accord- 

> See Lecture IV. p. 141. 2 Julian, Cses. 335, 329. 3 Ibid. 



222 



The Emperor Constantine. 



Lect. VI. 



ing to a somewhat severe proverb which spoke of him 
as excellent for the first ten years, as a robber for 
the next twelve, as a spendthrift for the last ten. 1 
His con- I. Every student of ecclesiastical history must 

version, m "j 

a.d. 312 pause for a moment before the conversion of Constan- 
(Oct. 20.). ^ nQ ^ js^ 0 convers i on of such magnitude had occurred 

since the apostolic age. None such occurred again 
till the baptism of the several founders of the Teu- 
tonic and Sclavonic kingdoms. 

Like all such events, it had its peculiar prepara- 
tions, and took its peculiar colouring from the circum- 
stances of the time and the character of the man. 
He had the remembrance of his father Constantius 
— just such a " devout " believer in Divine Provi- 
dence as we find so common in the Roman army 
several generations earlier, in the many good cen- 
turions of the New Testament. He had a lively 
recollection of the Christian arguments used before 
Diocletian. His rival Maxentius was a fierce fanati- 
cal Pagan, armed with magical arts, as was supposed, 
against which any counter supernatural influences 
were much to be cherished. He was approaching 
Rome for the first time, and was filled with the awe 
which that greatest of earthly cities inspired in all 
who named its name, or came within its influence. 

It is needless to repeat at length the story which 
Eusebius gives on the testimony of the Emperor 
himself. That he was in prayer on his march; — 
that "about noon, as the day was declining," 2 a 

1 Aurelius Victor, Epit. p. 224. 

2 See the explanation of this expression in notes to Lactantius, 
c. 44 (i. 315). 



Lect. VI. 



His Conversion. 



223 



flaming cross appeared in the sky with the words a.d. 312. 
¥ In this conquer " ; — that in the night which fol- 
lowed he saw in a dream the figure of Christ bearing 
a standard, such as in Christian pictures is repre- 
sented in the Descent to the departed spirits ; — that 
on consultation with Christian clergy in the camp he 
adopted this sacred banner instead of the Roman 
eagles, and professed himself a disciple of the Chris- 
tian faith. This differs materially from the several 
narratives of the Christian Lactantius, the Pagan 
Nazarius, and the Arian Philostorgius. Yet those 
stories (the former speaking of a dream in which 
the monogram of the name of Christ was ordered to 
be inscribed on the shields of the soldiers, the latter 
of flaming armies in the sky) point to some fact of 
the same kind : and it is not often in ancient history 
that we have a story derived so immediately at first 
hand, as this of Eusebius from Constantine. That the 
Emperor attested it on oath, as the historian tells us, 
is indeed no additional guarantee for the Emperor's 
veracity; because, like princes professing piety in 
modern times, he appears to have been in the con- 
stant habit of adding an oath 1 to almost every asseve- 
ration. But this very circumstance is an additional 
guarantee for the veracity of Eusebius in his version 
of the story. And further, that some such change, 
effected by some such means, took place at this crisis, 
is confirmed by the fact, not only of Constantine' s 
adoption of the Christian faith immediately after- 
wards, but by the specific introduction of the stan- 



1 See Lectures BEL p. 100, IV. p. 148. 



224 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.~d. 312. dard of the cross into the army, in great measure, 
though not entirely, agreeing with the indications in 
the narrative. 1 

If we suppose that the appearance was seen by 
others besides Constantine himself, it may well have 
been some such natural phenomenon as is known 
by the name of a " parhelion," which in an after- 
noon sky not unfrequently assumes almost the form 
of a cross. The impression produced may be com- 
pared to the effect of the Aurora Borealis which 
appeared in November, 1848, and which was inter- 
preted in the various countries of Europe according 
to the feeling uppermost at the moment, much as we 
may imagine that any like appearance would be by 
the army of Constantine. In France, it was regarded 
as forming the letters L.N., in prospect of the Presi- 
dential election then impending. In Oporto, it was 
regarded as the fire descending from on high to visit 
the crimes of a profligate city. In Rome, it was 
believed to be the blood of the murdered Rossi gone up 
to heaven to cry for vengeance against his assassins. 

If we suppose, on the other hand, that it was 
an appearance to Constantine alone, there is nothing 
more surprising than in the vision which effected the 
conversion of Colonel Gardiner, and which was re- 
lated by himself to Dr. Doddridge, as that of Con- 
stantine to Eusebius. 1 The conversion of Colonel 
Gardiner was doubtless more complete, and his con- 
victions more profound; but there is nothing in 

1 Dr. Doddridge's version of the story, in spite of its con- 
tradiction by Dr. Carlyle (Autobiography, p. 19), appears, in 
its main points, to be well founded. 



Lect. VI. 



His Conversion. 



225 



Constantine's character to prevent the possibility of a.d. 312. 
such an occurrence. He was far from being the mere 
worldly prince of a worldly age. Not he only, but 
his whole family were swayed by a strong religious 
sentiment, bursting out in different channels, — in the 
pilgrimages of Helena, in the Arianism of Constantia 
and Constantius, in the Paganism of Julian, — but in 
all sincerely, as far as it went. To Constantine him- 
self, dreams, visions, and revelations were matters, 
as he and his friends supposed, of constant recur- 
rence. His knowledge of the conspiracy of Maximin 
against his life, of the approach of the army of 
Licinius; the conception of the statue representing 
a dragon overthrown, before his palace ; the discovery 
of the Holy Sepulchre; the dedication of Constan- 
tinople, are all ascribed by Eusebius to express reve- 
lations from heaven. 1 He was a prophet to those 
around him, no less than a sovereign. We should 
not be surprised at the story of such a vision in the 
life of Cromwell, neither ought we to be in the life 
of Constantine, even were the issues which hung 
upon it less momentous than they really were. 

The victory of the Milvian Bridge is one of the few The Battle 
battles that have decided the fate of the Church no less Milvian 
than of the world. It was not without cause that in Octls, 
the results of the engagement, as well as in its details A ' D " 312, 
of the entanglement of men and horses in the eddies 
of the Tiber, Christians should have been reminded 2 
of the great deliverance of the Jewish Church, when 
u the horse and his rider were thrown into the sea," 
and Israel came out free from the bondage of the 

1 Eus. V. C. i. 27, 28, ii. 12, iii. 3, 29. 2 Ibid. i. 38. 

VOL. I. Q 



226 



The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 312. Egyptian Pharaoh. It was the first, fulfilment, as it 
seemed, of the motto which Constantine had seen in 
his vision — Conquer ; and from this and his subse- 
quent victories, which followed in rapid succession, 
over his several rivals, he acquired the name of Con- 
queror, which, both in its Latin and Greek form 
( Victor, Nicetes), passed almost into a proper name, 
and is held up as the omen of his career by his 
Christian eulogists. This victory ended the age of 
persecutions, and ended also the primitive period of 
ecclesiastical history. The seven-branched candle- 
stick of Jerusalem was lost, it is said, on that day in 
the waves of the Tiber. On that day, too, was lost 
the simpler ruder form of the Christianity of the 
three first centuries. From that day onwards, the 
28th of October, in the year 312, began the gradual 
recognition of the Christian faith by those ambiguous 
measures which have invested the career of Constan- 
tine with such a peculiar difficulty of interpretation. 

Ambiguous Xhe triumphal arch which bears his name, and 

religion of x 

Constan- which was erected as a trophy of the Battle of the 
Milvian Bridge, is a standing monument, not only of 
the decay of art which had already made itself felt, 
but of the hesitation of the new Emperor between 
the two religions. The dubious inscription on its 
front well marks the moment of transition. " Instinctu 
" Divinitatis et mentis magnitudine" are the two 
qualities to which the senate ascribes the victory. 
" Divinitas," or Providence, is the word 2 under which, 
in his public acts, he veils his passage from Paganism 



1 See Eus. Laud. Const, c. 5. 

2 This is well brought out by Broglie, i. 234—239. 



Lect. VI. 



His Conversion. 



227 



to Christianity. His statues, in like manner, halted a.d. 312. 
between the two opinions. That erected at Koine 
held in its hand the Emperor's well-known spear, 
but the spear bore the form of a Cross. That at 
Constantinople was in the image of his ancient patron 
deity Apollo ; but the glory of the sunbeams was com- 
posed of the emblems of the Crucifixion, and under- 
neath its feet were buried in strange juxtaposition a 
fragment of the " True Cross " and the ancient Pal- 
ladium of Eome. His coins bore on the one side 
the letters of the name of Christ ; on the other the 
figure of the Sun-god, and the inscription " Sol 
invictus," as if he could not bear to relinquish the 
patronage of the bright luminary which represented 
to him, as to Augustus and to Julian 1 , his own 
guardian deity. 

The same tenacious adherence to the ancient God 
of light has left its trace, even to our own time, on 
one of the most sacred and universal of Christian 
institutions. The retention of the old Pagan name of 
" Dies Solis" or " Sunday," for the weekly Christian 
festival, is, in great measure, owing to the union of 
Pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first 
day of the week was recommended by Constantine 
to his subjects, Pagan and Christian alike, as the 
" venerable day of the Sun." His celebrated decree 
has been justly called 2 "a new era in the history of 
"the Lord's Day." It was his mode of harmonising 
the Christian and Pagan elements of the Empire 
under one common institution. 

1 Ep. 51. 

2 Dr. Hessey's Bampton Lectures, p. 77 — 89. 

q 2 



228 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



Ambiguous These ambiguities, though in part the growth of 

religion of . , 6 ? . , - B n , . 

the age. Constantine s own peculiarities, lose much of their 
strangeness and gain in general interest, when viewed 
in the light of the age of which they were a part. 
In the change from Roman Catholicism to Protes- 
tantism in the English Reformation, it would be easy 
to adduce parallels of persons who wavered so con- 
stantly between the two, that it is difficult to know 
exactly what place to assign to them. Elizabeth 
herself may suffice as a specimen. This may pre- 
pare us for finding that even in the much greater 
change from Paganism to Christianity the boundary 
lines were less abrupt than at this distance we are 
apt to fancy. Orpheus and Pan appear as repre- 
senting our Saviour in the Christian catacombs. The 
labours of Hercules are engraven on the chair — 
undoubtedly old, possibly authentic — of S. Peter. 
The Jordan appears as a river god in the baptistery 
at Ravenna. Some of the epitaphs in the Christian 
catacombs begin with the Pagan address to the gods 
of the grave. Even in the fifth century, a Pope was 
suspected of consulting the Etruscan auguries in 
the terror of Alaric's siege. In the sixth century, 
whether Boethius was a Christian or a Pagan is still 
matter of dispute ; and Bishops of that age, in the 
neighbourhood of Antioch, were accused of being 
present at a human sacrifice. 1 

We may remember the striking remarks of Nie- 
buhr : — " Many judge of Constantine by too severe 
" a standard, because they regard him as a Chris- 



1 Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, iii. 29. 



Lect. VI. 



His Conversion. 



229 



" tian; but I cannot look upon him in that light. 
" The religion which he had in his head must have 

" been a strange jumble indeed He was 

u a superstitious man, and mixed up his Christian 
" religion with all kinds of absurd superstitions and 
" opinions. When certain Oriental writers call him 
" 'equal to the Apostles/ they do not know what 
u they are saying; and to speak of him as a saint is a 
" profanation of the word." 1 

This is true in itself. But, in order to be 
just, we must bear in mind that it probably de- 
scribes the religion of many in that time besides 
Constantine. And it is indisputable, that, in spite 
of all these inconsistencies, he went steadily for- 
ward in the main purpose of his life, that of pro- 
tecting and advancing the cause of the Christian 
religion. The Paganism of Julian, if judged by the 
Paganism of Cicero or of Pericles, would appear as 
strange a compound, as the Christianity of Con- 
stantine, if judged by the Christianity of the Middle 
Ages or of the Keformation. But Julian's face 
was not set more steadily backwards, than was 
Constantine's steadily forwards. The one devoted 
himself to the revival of that which had waxed 
old, and was ready to vanish away ; the other to the 
advancement of that which year by year was gaining 
in strength and life. 

It is not necessary to do more than enumerate Constan- 
the acts of Constantine's ecclesiastical legislation, in Christian 
order to see the vastness of the revolution of which leglsla 101 
he was the leader. 

1 Lectures on Roman History, v. 449. 

q 3 



230 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d.313. In 313 was issued the Edict of Toleration. Then 
followed in rapid succession, the decree for the ob- 
servance of Sunday in the towns of the Empire, 
the use of prayers for the army *, the abolition of 
the punishment of crucifixion, the encouragement 
of the emancipation of slaves, the discouragement 
of infanticide, the prohibition of private divinations, 
the prohibition of licentious and cruel rites, the pro- 
hibition of gladiatorial games. Every one of these steps 
was a gain to the Koman Empire and to mankind, 
such as not even the Antonines had ventured to at- 
tempt, and of those benefits none has been altogether 
lost. Undoubtedly, if Constantine is to be judged 
by the place which he occupies amongst the benefac- 
tors of mankind, he would rank, not amongst the secon- 
dary characters of history, but amongst the very first. 

His inter- n. From Constantine's Christian legislation for the 

vention in 0 

thenars Empire, we naturally pass to his intervention in the 
Church. affairs of the Church itself. Of this the most direct 
example was that which we have already seen in the 
Council of Mcaea. But that event was only the chief 
manifestation of the new relations which he introduced, 
and which to Eusebius appeared no less than the ful- 
filment of the Apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem. 

Here, also, the conflict of his own personal cha- 
racter has left its marks even to this hour. On the 
one hand, he never forgot, nor did the ecclesiastics 
ever forget, that he was the consecrated Emperor 
of the world ; and that, even in their company, he 
regarded himself as the Bishop of Bishops. That 

1 These contained the germ of " Te Deum." Eus. V. C. iv. 39. 



( 



Lect. VI. Founder of an Established Church. 231 



General Councils are called, maintained, and con- a.d. 325. 
trolled by the Imperial power was first laid down q^cUs 
by Constantine, and is still one of the established 
maxims of the Eastern Churches, and also of the 
Church of England. 1 On the other hand, he always Established 

0 " hierarchy. 

felt a mysterious awe in the presence of the clergy 2 , 
which probably first awakened in them the sense of 
their position as a distinct order in the State; and 
which, although less prominent in the East, became 
in the West the germ of the Papal and hierarchical 
system of the middle ages. But his leading idea was 
to restore peace to the Church, as he had restored it 
to the Empire. 3 In the execution of this idea two 
courses of action presented themselves to him, as they 
have to all ecclesiastical statesmen ever since. He 
stands at the head of all, in the fact that he combined 
them both in himself. In him both the latitudina- Latitudi- 

. narianism. 

nan and the persecutor may find their earliest prece- 
dents, which were both alike approved by the eccle- 
siastics of that age, though in later times he has been 
as severely condemned for the one as he has been 
praised for the other. No scheme of comprehension 
has been broader, on the one hand, than that put 
forward in his celebrated letter to Alexander and 
Arius 4 ; and on the other, when this failed, he still 
pursued the same end, with the same tenacity, by 
the directly opposite means of enforcing uniformity, 
to us long familiar, but first introduced by him 
into the Church, — the hitherto unknown practice of Subscrip- 

. "V tion to 

subscription to the articles of a written Creed, and Greeds. 

1 See Lecture II. p. 80. 2 See Lecture III. p. 101, 154. 

3 " Quietis Instaurator." 4 See Lecture III. p. 100. 

q 4 



232 The Emperor Constan tine. Lect. VI. 



the infliction of civil penalties on those who refused 
to conform. 

These were his public measures, natural in a 
half-educated soldier suddenly awakened to a sense 
of a position of almost unprecedented political impor- 
tance, yet complicated by the contradictions in which 
such a man, so placed, was almost certain to be in- 
volved. Legislators and ecclesiastics in later times 
have followed in his footsteps, without the same ex- 
cuse ; and, on the whole, with no greater success. 

What his personal convictions may have been, 
in regard to the peculiar doctrines which he suc- 
cessively attacked and defended, it is impossible to 
determine. But we cannot doubt his sincere interest 
in some at least of the questions which were raised. 
Like his nephew Julian 1 , although with a far ruder 
education and less fantastic mind, he threw himself 
into the disputations of the time as a serious busi- 
His devo- ness of Imperial state. Not only did he at the fes- 
tival of Easter spend the night in prayer with every 
appearance of devotion, and even preside at the 
most sacred ceremonies, but he alternately as stu- 
dent or teacher took part in Christian preaching. 2 
The extravagant adulation of his followers hardly 
left him any choice. Eusebius attributes to him 
little less than inspiration : — " We do not in- 
" struct thee, who hast been made wise by God. 
" We do not disclose to thee the sacred mysteries, 
" which long before any discourses of men God 
u Himself revealed, not of men nor by men, but 
u through our common Saviour, and the Divine 

1 Broglie, iii. 281. 2 Eus. V. C. iv. 39. 



Lcct. VI. 



His Preaching. 



2 33 



i" vision of Himself which has often shone upon His atten- 
u thee." 1 If he did listen to the sermons of others, it sermons, 
was regarded as an act of the highest condescension. 
Eusebius has left us an account of one which he him- 
self delivered to a the marvellous man," as he calls 
him, on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was 
in the Palace. There was a crowded audience. The 
Emperor stood erect the whole time; would not be 
induced to sit down on the throne close by ; paid the 
utmost attention ; would not hear of the sermon 
being too long ; insisted on its continuance ; and, on 
being again entreated to sit down, replied, with a 
frown, that he could not bear to hear the truths of 
Religion in any easier posture. 2 More often he was His 
himself the preacher. One such sermon has been 
preserved to us by Eusebius. These sermons were 
always in Latin ; but they were translated into 
Greek by interpreters appointed for the purpose. 
On these occasions a general invitation was issued, 
and thousands of people flocked to the Palace to hear 
an Emperor turned preacher. He stood erect ; and 
then, with a set countenance and grave voice, poured 
forth his address ; to which, at the striking passages, 
the audience responded with loud cheers of approba- 
tion, the Emperor vainly endeavouring to deter them 
by pointing upwards, as if to transfer the glory from 
himself to heaven. 

He usually preached on the general system of the 
Christian revelation; the follies of Paganism; the 
Unity and Providence of God; the scheme of re- 
demption; the judgment; and then attacked fiercely 
1 Laud. Const, c. 11. 2 V. C. iv. 32. 



234 



The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



trie avarice and rapacity of the courtiers, who cheered 
lustily, but did nothing of what he had told them. 
On one occasion he caught hold of one of them, and 
drawing on the ground, with his spear, the figure of 
a man, said : "In this space is contained all that you 
" will carry with you after death." 1 

III. If Constantine was intoxicated by his success 
at Mcsea, and by the enthusiasm of his ecclesiastical 
admirers, he can hardly be blamed. It is probably to 
this, and to the demoralising influence of his Oriental 
habits, that we must ascribe the melancholy fact that 
he was, by general consent, a worse prince at the 
close of his reign than at its beginning, when he was 
little more than half a Pagan. 2 

On this the third part of his career, where the 
incidents of his life and the indications of his character 
were more closely connected, we now enter. It has 
been lately drawn out with a skilful eloquence, per- 
haps in its details beyond the strict warrant of facts, 
but in its general outline sufficiently justified. 3 

In the year following the Council of Nicsea, Con- 
stantine visited Rome for the first time since his 
declared conversion. Two events marked this fatal 
visit. 

The Pro- The first brings before us in a striking form the 
the S EqueL decay of the old religion and the rise of the new. 
trian order, Emperor arr ived at Eome a short time before 
the Ides of Quintilis, the 15th of July. That day was 
the anniversary of the battle of the Lake Regillus, 

1 V. C. iv. 29, 30. Probably addressed to Ablavius. (See 
Broglie, ii. 83.) 

2 Eutrop. x. 7 ; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 224. 

3 Broglie, ii. 93—114. 



Lect. VI. 



His last visit to Rome. 



235 



when the twin gods, Castor and Pollux, had fought 
for Kome, and brought the glad tidings of the victory 
to the city. On this day a grand muster and inspec- 
tion of the Equestrian order formed part of the cere- 
mony, in honour of the two equestrian gods. 1 All the 
knights, clad in purple and crowned with olive, rode 
in state to the Forum. It was considered one of the 
most splendid pageants of Eome. The cavalcade 
sometimes consisted of 5000 horsemen. It is this 
festival which Lord Macaulay has celebrated in his 
Lay on the Battle of the Lake Regillus. A few of 
his lines will place us more in the presence of the 
spectacle which Constantine saw, than any lengthened 
prose description : — 

cc Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride, in all their pride, 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 

With olive each is crown'd ; 
A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow River, 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honour still. 
Gay are the Martian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay t 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 

Shall be Rome's whitest day." 



See Zosimus, ii. 2. 



236 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 326. Of this august ceremonial the shadow still re- 
mained, and its great recollections endeared it to the 
Roman populace ; but its meaning was passed away ; 
and Constantine not only refused to take part in 
the rites of worship which it involved, but, as the 
procession rode by, could not restrain the sarcastic 
humour for which he was renowned, and openly 
indulged in jest- at the sham knights and the empty 
pomp. 

The Roman people were furious. A riot broke out 
in the streets. He remained impassive. It was pro- 
bably on this occasion that he uttered one of those cold 
dry sayings that have come down to us. A courtier 
rushed in to announce that stones had been thrown 
at the head of one of the Emperor's statues. The 
Emperor passed his hand over his face, and said with 
a smile : " It is very surprising, but I do not feel in 
" the least hurt." 1 
Crimes of But the disgust which this incident awakened in 

the Impe- . . , . 

rial family, his mind against the city and religion of Rome 
rankled deep within, and side by side with it we dimly 
trace a tragedy, which, in its mysterious interest, 
and in the consequences to which it led, ranks with 
any to which history or fiction has been ever de- 
voted. The Imperial family consisted of various 
heterogeneous elements. 2 There were, first, the off- 
spring of the two marriages of Constantius Chlorus : 
Constantine, the son of the low-born Helena ; and his 
three half-brothers, sons of Theodora, who was daugh- 
ter of the Emperor Maximian. Next were in like 



1 Broglie, ii. 95. 



2 See the Genealogy, p. 261. 



Lect. VI. 



His last visit to Rome. 



237 



manner the double offspring of Constantine himself: 
Crispus, the son of the obscure Minervina ; Con- 
stantine, Constantius, and Constans, the sons of 
Fausta, sister of Theodora ; and thus aunt to her 
husband's three half-brothers. Thirdly, there was 
Constantia, sister of Constantine, wife of Constan- 
tino's rival the Emperor Licinius, and mother of 
a young prince of the same name. Every one of 
these characters contributes to the drama which 
has met with a parallel twice over in European 
history: the story of Philip II., Isabella, and Don 
Carlos; the story of Peter the Great and his son 
Alexis. 1 It is easy to imagine the animosities and 
partialities of Helena, the Empress-mother ; of Fausta, 
the reigning Empress ; of the two lines of Imperial 
Princes against each other. Out of this vortex of 
mutual suspicion emerge three dark crimes faintly 
known at the time, hardly mentioned above a 
whisper even in the next generation, passed over 
without a word from the courtly Eusebius, glanced 
at without the names by Chrysostom ; yet in some 
form or other incontestably true, and connected more 
or less certainly with Constantine's last visit to 
Eome. Crispus, the heir to the throne, — suspected Crispus. 
of high-treason, says one tradition ; of intrigue with 
his step-mother, says another, — is, by his father's 
orders, put to death at Pola. The young Licinius, Licinius. 
apparently as part of the same plan, is torn from the 

1 The parallel of Don Carlos must be received with the quali- 
fications which later discoveries have introduced into the story. 
It is in its older form that it so nearly resembles the murder of 
Crispus. That of Alexis is still unshaken. 



238 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 226. arms of his mother Constantia, and murdered in the 
remote East. If the party of Fausta for a moment 
triumphed in the destruction of these two youthful 
rivals, their hopes were soon overcast. The Empress 
Helena 1 , furious at the loss of her favourite grandson, 
turned the dark suspicions of her son into another 

Fausta. quarter, and the next victim was Fausta herself. 2 
She was accused of unfaithfulness with one of the 
Imperial Guards 3 ; according to the Byzantine tradi- 
tion of the next century, exposed to starvation on 
the top of some desert mountain 4 ; according to the 
more usual story, suffocated in the vapours of the 
Imperial bath. 

However secret these horrors might be, yet enough 
transpired to rouse the popular feeling of Eome, 
already wounded by the Emperor's neglect of the 
sacred rites of the city. An inscription was found 
one day over the gates of the Palatine, catching at 
once the two weak points of Constantine's character, 
his Oriental luxury and his cruelty : 

" Saturni aurea saecla quis requirit ? 
Sunt hgec gemmea, vel Neroniana." 

From this black period of Constantine's life flow, 
in a sequence more or less remote, four great results 
of ecclesiastical history. 

1. The foundation of the Papal Power in Rome. 

In the Emperor's passionate remorse (so the story 
ran in the Pagan circles of his subjects) his thoughts 
turned back to the old religion which he had deserted. 

1 Zosimus, ii. 29 ; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 224. 

2 For all the authorities see Clinton's Fasti Romani, a.d. 326. 

3 Philost. ii. 5. 4 Chrysostom, in Philipp. Horn. xv. 



Lect. VI. Foundation of the Papal Power. 239 



He applied to the Flamens at Rome for purification. 1 
They proudly declared that for such crimes their 
religious ritual knew of no expiation. He turned (so 
another version reported) to philosophy. He sought 
for relief from Sopater 2 , the chief of the Alexandrian 
Platonists, and from him also the same stern answer 
was received. In this extremity (and here Pagan story of 

, , J . . . 0 the absola- 

and Christian accounts to a certain extent coincide) tion of 
he sought refuge in the new religion which he had 
taken under his protection. There was an Egyptian 
magician from Spain, well known among the ladies 
of the Imperial court, who assured him that in the 
Christian Church were mysteries which provided 
purification from any sin, however great. Through 
this Spanish Egyptian, or Egyptian Spaniard, ac- 
cording to Zosimus, the conversion of Constantine 
took place. Taken literally, this cannot be true. The 
conversion of the Emperor had taken place long 
before. His baptism, as we shall see, took place long 
after. But the story is not, therefore, to be rejected 
as wholly false. That Spanish counsellor, we cannot 
doubt, was the well-known Hosius, Bishop of Cor- 
dova, the Emperor's counsellor in the West, as Eu- 
sebius of Cassarea in the East. He would be on the 
spot with Helena and her suite. He, as the confi- 
dential adviser of Constantine, would be the very 
person that the Empress would most naturally con- 
sult ; and he would in all probability give the 
very answer which to Pagan ears seemed so mon- 

1 Cf. Julian, Cses. 336. 

2 He assisted in the dedication of Constantinople, but was 
afterwards put to death by Constantine, to prove his own sincerity. 
Soz. i. 5 ; Zosimus, ii. 40 ; Suidas in voce. 



240 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 326. strous : " There are no sins so great, but that 
" in Christianity they may find forgiveness." It 
is a doctrine, which, according to the manner in 
which it is presented to us, is indeed the worst cor- 
ruption or the noblest boast of the Christian reli- 
gion. " In Christianity there is forgiveness for every 
" sin." This may be the hateful Antinomianism 
which, in the Protestant Church, has taken shelter 
under the Lutheran doctrine of " Justification by 
"Faith only," in the Roman Catholic Church, under 
the scholastic doctrine of Priestly Absolution. But it 
may also be the true message of the Gospel ; the 
reception of the prodigal son, of the woman who was 
a sinner, and of the thief on the cross ; the doctrine 
that the Divine forgiveness is ever at hand as soon 
story of as man turns to be forgiven. Of this intervention of 
tion of S Syi- ner great Hosius, the Church of Spain has made the 
vester. most. But there was yet another version of the story, 
of which the Church of Eome has made still more. 
According to Sozomen 1 it was not Hosius, but Syl- 
vester, Bishop of Rome, who thus received the peni- 
tent Emperor, and who gave him not only consolation, 
but the actual rite of baptism. And such a represen- 
tation is curiously in accordance with the easy recep- 
tion of gross sinners of which Tertullian complains 
in earlier Bishops of Rome, probably Callistus. 2 

Out of this version, in part certainly false, in part 
founded on truth, arose the portentous fable of the 
Donation of Constantine, which, as an example of all 

1 Soz. i. 5. 

2 Tert. de Pudicitia, i. : " Pontifex Maximus, quod est Episcopus 
Episcoporum edicat: Ego et mcechise et fornicationis delicta poe- 
nitentia functis dimitto. 0 edictum cui non ascribi potuit Bonum 
factum ! " 



Lect. VJ. Donation of Constantine. 



24 



such fictions, ought never to be forgotten by students a.d. 326: 
of ecclesiastical history. In the seventh year of his 
reign (so, omitting all mention of his crimes, the 
legend runs), Constantine was struck with leprosy. 
He consulted all physicians in vain. Jews recom- 
mended to him the blood of infants. 1 The magical 
arts of the heathen sorcerers gave way before the 
sanctity of the Roman Bishop. He heard that the 
aged' Sylvester was living in concealment on the 
heights of Mount Soracte, where the convent stands 
which bears Sylvester's name. He sought him out. 
He was baptized by him in the Lateran Palace. He 
gave him the palace which had witnessed the bap- 
tism. He gave him the dominion over the city of 
Rome, over Italy, over the Western Empire. 

" Ah ! Constantine ; to Low much ill gave birth, 
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains 
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee ! " 2 

So Dante wrote in the bitterness of his heart, of 
what he believed to be the origin of the Pope's tem- 
poral sovereignty. And even when the progress 
of criticism had taught the next great Italian poet 
to place the donation of Constantine in the moon 
amongst the things which have never been, the eccle- 
siastical historians of Rome still clung to such shreds 
of truth as the story contained, even at the risk of 
making the Papal power the price of an absolution 
for the murder of a son, a nephew, and a wife. 

But though the actual transaction of the baptism 

1 Cedrenus, 271. 

2 Inferno, xix. 115 ; Milton, Prose Works, i. p. 11. 
VOL. I. R 



242 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 

a.d. 321. and of the donation is fabulous, there was a slight 
connection of fact between the crime of Constantine 
and the early rise of Roman ecclesiastical grandeur. 

There is every probability that remorse, taking the 
form of devotion, as in the princes and prelates of 
the middle ages, should have led to the building of 
Churches at Rome, and the attachment of certain 
privileges to the see of Rome. It is false that Con- 
stantine gave the Roman States. But it may possibly 
be true that he gave (to use the modern phrase) 
u a palace and a garden " ; and there is little doubt 
that the Lateran Palace, which had actually belonged 
to the Empress Fausta, and had been already assigned 
by him to ecclesiastical purposes, was formally made 
over by him to the Roman see. Parts of the build- 
ing — especially the baptistery — are actually of his 
/time, and it must be from some strong historical 
reason that the Palace and Church of the Lateran, 
rather than St. Peter's and the Vatican, form the 
nucleus of Christian and Papal Rome. Here, and 
not in St. Peter's, have all the Roman Councils been 
held. This, and not St. Peter's, is the Cathedral 
Church of Rome, the mother Church of Christendom : 

i( Dogmati Papali datur ac simul Imperiali, 
Quod sim cunctarum mater caput ecclesiarum" 

Here, and not in the Vatican, was the early residence, 
and still take place the enthronisation and corona- 
tion, of the Popes. On the throne of the Lateran, and 
not on the chair of S. Peter, is written the proud 
inscription : 

" Hcec est Papalis Sedes et Pontificalis." 



Lect. VI. Foundation of Constantinople. 243 



This, if we may so apply Ariosto's words, as trans- a.d. 326, 
lated by Milton,— 

e< This is that gift, if you the truth will have, 
Which Con stan tine to good Sylvester gave." 1 

2. There is yet another particle of truth in the Foun da- 
story of the Donation. According to the fable of stantino- 
Sylvester, Const ant ine retired to Greece 2 , in order to ple * 
leave Italy for the Pope. 

"Per cedere al Pastor sifece Greco." 3 
So said the legend. And it was undoubtedly the Retirement 

i-n fr°rn Italy. 

case, that by retiring to the East he left the held 
clear for the Bishops of Rome. In the absence of 
the Emperors from Rome, the chief Christian 4 magi- 
strate rose to new importance. "When the barbarians 
broke upon Italy, the Pope thus became the represen- 
tative of the ancient Republic. It is one of the 
many senses in which the famous saying of Hobbes 
is true, that the Papacy is but " the ghost of the 
" deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the 
" grave thereof." 

His retirement from Rome may well have been in 
part occasioned by remorse for the crimes which he 
had there sanctioned. The belief in such a connection 
was perpetuated in the story that the first monument 
erected in his new city was the golden statue of Cris- 
pus, underneath which was written : " To my innocent 

1 Orlando Furioso, xxiv. 80. 

2 See, for all the authorities, Gieseler, ii. 336. 

3 Dante, Paradiso, xx. 55. 

4 Compare the importance of the position which the Patriarch of 
Constantinople, as representative of the Byzantine Church and 
Empire, now holds under the Sultan. 

R 2 



A.D. 330. 



244 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 

" and unfortunate son." More certainly it was his 
revulsion from the Roman Paganism. For Rome was 
Pagan. He and her Pagan customs had come into col- 
lision on the Ides of Quintilis in a manner never to 
be forgotten. He determined to make a new Rome 
elsewhere. A striking parallel is found in the case 
of another great potentate of the Eastern Church. 
Moscow, the centre of old Russia, was to Peter the 
Great, as Rome, the centre of old Paganism, was 
to Constantine 1 ; and he founded his new capital at 
Petersburg (the very adoption of the name is ex- 
actly analogous) as Constantine at Constantinople. 
Choice of Of all the events of Constantine's life, this choice 

Constanti- , i , 1 1 • r r 1 • i 

nopie, is the most convincing and enduring proof 01 nis real 
genius. No city, chosen by the art of man, has been 
so well chosen, and so permanent. Alexandria is the 
nearest approach. All the others erected by the 
fancy or policy of individual sovereigns are misera- 
bly inferior, Berlin, Madrid, and even Petersburg 
He had thought of other spots in the neighbourhood : 
Sardica in Moesia 2 ("my Rome is," he said, " at Sar- 
" dica") ; or Troy, following the old tradition against 
which Horace had protested. But, when at Chrysopolis 
(Scutari) and Mcsea, he had seen Byzantium. As his 
conversion was ushered in by the story of a preter- 
natural apparition, so was his choice of this, as it may 
well be called, predestinated capital. An eagle flew 
from the opposite shore to mark the spot. Sopater, the 
Neoplatonist, assisted with his heathen ceremonies at 
the consecration. He himself, in solemn procession, 
traced the boundaries of the city with his well-known 



1 See Lecture XII. 



2 Broglie, ii. 144. 



Lect. VI. Foundation of Constantinople. 245 



spear, and when asked to halt in the immense circuit, a.d. 330. 
replied, " I shall go on till He who guides me stops." 
" Jubente Deo " are his own words in describing his 
choice. 1 

The situation is indeed unrivalled. It stands, alone its situa- 
of the cities of the world, actually on two continents. 
It has the advantages of the confluence as of two 
rivers, and of a splendid maritime situation besides ; 
for such is the effect both in appearance and reality 
of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and the deep 
waters of the Propontis. As in the combination of 
these advantages, narrow straits, deep inlets, nume- 
rous islands, prolonged promontories, Europe is the 
miniature of the civilised world; and Greece, with 
its iEgeah Sea, is the miniature of the geography of 
Europe ; so the local peculiarities both of Greece and 
Europe are concentrated and developed to the highest 
degree in Constantinople. It is impossible to look 
down from the Galata Tower on the complication 
of sea and land, island and mainland, peninsula 
and promontory, strait and continent, and not feel 
that the spot is destined to be, what it seems more 
and more likely to be both historically and poli- 
tically, the Gordian knot of the world. 

And this situation is further designed by nature, 
not merely for a great city, but for a capital of the 
most imposing aspect, nay more, for a second Rome. 
As truly a city of the sea as any of the maritime 
cities of the West, it has the advantage of being 
raised aloft on a line of hills, towering high above the 

1 Broglie, ii. 154. 
b 8 



246 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 330. level waters of the Bosphoms. These hills, too, 
are seven in number, — seven, not like the hills of old 
Rome, indistinctly and confusedly, but each follow- 
ing each in marked and august succession, — each 
crowned even now, and probably crowned always, by 
magnificent buildings (mosques now, churches then), 
the noblest succession of public or sacred edifices, as 
seen from without, that the old or the new world can 
boast, closing in the mass of verdure, of cypress, 
orange, and plane, which gathers round the buildings 
of the palace on the extreme eastern point. 

And this glorious city, " the City" as it alone is 
called (Stamboul being slg tt)v n-oTuv), is but the 
crowning scene which rises in the midst of the three 
other quarters, Galata, Pera, Scutari, each with its 
own towers and forests; and the whole, intervening 
space between and around is now, and probably was 
always since its foundation, alive with skiffs and boats 
and ships and flags of all the nations of the world. 
In the Apocalyptic vision of Babylon, which brings 
together in one the various images of earthly 
greatness, there are features taken from the ancient 
Tyre which are vainly sought in the old Rome 
beside the Tiber. Constantinople alone unites them 
all. Few would pretend to say that she was designed, 
however remotely, in the prophet's vision. But it is 
a proof of what she is, that she, and she alone, in 
her union of traffic, and ships, and splendour, and 
her seat of seven hills, comes up to the highest local 
images of earthly grandeur as therein presented to 
our view. 



Lect. VI. Foundation of Constantinople. 247 



What of the ancient empire may have been within a.d. 330. 
the city is now almost entirely perished. Consider- 
ing how all the world was spoiled to adorn the city 
of Constantine, and what vast treasures old Rome 
still possesses, it is remarkable how meagre are the 
Imperial remains of Christian Constantinople. But 
the immediate neighbourhood still recalls the glories 
of what has been, and what might be, a great capital. 
The Bosphorus with its palaces is the very ideal 
of the suburban retreats of an Imperial aristocracy. 
The walls which still surround the city of Stam- 
boul with their fourfold circuit, broken through and 
through, overgrown with the rank vegetation of 
neglected centuries, yet still stand to tell the sad 
story of the twenty- seven times besieged and thrice 
captured city of Constantinople, the fourth city in 
the world ; fourth, because second only in importance 
to Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. 

I need not go further into detail. It has been 
described by two of the greatest historians of modern 
times. Gibbon has been inspired by it with a new life. 
Thrice in his history he describes it at length, as if 
he had seen it. The greatness of Constantinople forms 
the centre of the second part, almost as much as the 
fall of Rome of the first part, of his majestic work. 
Von Hammer, author of the " History of the Otto- 
man Empire," has devoted to it an exhaustive treatise, 
such as no other ancient city, except those I have just 
mentioned, has called forth. 

But the place of Constantinople in the history of 
the Church must be briefly indicated. 

R 4 



248 



The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VL 



A.D. 330. 
First 
Christian 
city. 



Chief ec- 
clesiastical 
city of the 
East. 



Effects on 
the Kefor- 
mation. 



It was tlie first Christian city. There were the 
spoils of heathenism within it, and there were some 
of those mixed forms of Christianity and of hea- 
thenism which I have already noticed. But its dif- 
ferences from the old Rome were marked by two 
significant changes of outward feature. Instead of 
temples it had churches. Except during the short 
reign of Julian, no column of sacrificial smoke has 
ever gone up from the Seven Hills of Constantinople. 
In the place of the amphitheatre of the Colosseum, 
with its brutal spectacles, was the comparatively 
innocent Hippodrome, with those chariot races, of 
which the blue and green factions even interwove 
themselves with the passions of theological hatred 
and the course of ecclesiastical history. 

It became the ecclesiastical city of the East. To 
it was transferred the preeminence of the Apostolic 
see of the neighbouring Ephesus. Before its presence 
the Primacy of the more distant Alexandria died away. 
Its Patriarch was the first to assume, and still exclu- 
sively retains, the title of " (Ecumenical." Its mo- 
nasteries and schools became the refuge of Christian 
and secular learning, when the West had almost 
relapsed into barbarism. 

It has been powerfully described 1 , how, when 
the life of Europe would have been arrested under 
the Latin hierarchy but for the intervention of some 
foreign element, " Greece arose from the dead with 
" the New Testament in her hand." Most true. But 
Greece and the Greek Testament were preserved for 



1 Lecture on the Study of History, by Professor Goldwin Smith. 



Lect. VI. Foundation of the Holy Places. 249 



that great crisis by the Empire and Church of Con- 
stantinople. It may have been a tomb ; but in that 
stately tomb the sacred light was kept burning till 
the moment came for it to kindle a new fire else- 
where. To the Greek exiles from the fallen city of a.d. 1453. 
Constantine we owe the purest and the most enduring 
elements of the Reformation, namely, the New Testa- 
ment in its original language, and the revival of 
Greek learning, which gave us critics and commenta- 
tors to unfold its meaning. Long after the effects of 
Luther's work shall have been exhausted, the effects 
of Erasmus's work will remain, and the work of 
Erasmus, humanly speaking, could not have been 
achieved without the scholars of Constantinople. 

3. It is only by the coincidence of dates that we Founda- 

. ... tionofthe 

can trace any connection between the tragical visit to Holy 

Places of 

Rome and the foundation of the Holy Places of Palestine, 

AD 327 

Palestine. Yet it is so natural a conjecture, that 
we may at least take advantage of it for briefly 
touching on this aspect of Constantine's life. If it Pilgrimage 

& r . of Helena, 

was not in order to seek expiation for her son's 
crimes, and consolation for her own sorrows, that 
Helena made her famous journey to the Holy Land, 
it was immediately consequent upon them. Of the 
sacred relics which Helena found in Jerusalem, two 
were specially sent to her son : the nails which, as it 
was believed, had fastened the Saviour's hands to the 
Cross. The use to which he applied them is so like 
himself and his age, and so unlike our own, as to 
require special notice. One was turned into the bit 
of his war-horse, the other into an ornament of 
his helmet. It is impossible in this appropriation 



250 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 327. of those sacred fragments not to recognise the fierce 
military Emperor of the old Pagan age, even though 
the Christian historians of the time strove to see 
in it a direct fulfilment of the prophecy, " In that 
" day shall be written on the bells of the horses, 
" Holiness unto the Lord." 1 On the churches erected 
by Helena's instigation, and at Constantine's cost, 
over the caves at Bethlehem, Olivet, and Jerusalem, 
and on the modern controversy which rages over the 
most sacred of them, I need not dwell here at length. 2 
This pilgrimage was the last act of the Empress 
Helena. She died on her return home, at her birth- 
place in Asia Minor. Eome and Constantinople 
dispute her remains. At Constantinople she was 
long known simply as " the Empress " — " Augusta;" 
and in the calendar of the Eastern Church she 
and her son are always united, 
tiono?" ^' ^ e res * ora tion of Arius and his party was not 
Arius. more certainly connected with Constantine's crimes. 

The Princess Constantia, whose husband and son 
had both perished by her brother's orders, was now 
on her death-bed at Nicomedia. She entreated to 
see the Emperor once more. He came ; and her 
parting request, backed by the influence of her 
chaplain Eustocius 3 , was that he would recall the 
Arian leaders, and restore unity to the Church and 
Empire. This request fell in with Constantine's own 
troubled conscience, and with his long cherished 

1 Zech. xiv. 20 ; Theod. i. 38. 

2 See Sinai and Palestine, ch. xiv. 

3 Photius, Biblioth. 661. 



Lect. VI. 



Restoration of Arianism. 



251 



desire for the union of the different parties in the 
Church. 1 Amidst the many contradictions with 
which the history is here involved, the main facts are 
indisputable. Arius and the Nicomedian Eusebius 
are recalled. The troubles of Athanasius begin, as 
the party of his opponents rises into the Imperial 
favour. The Council of Tyre, which marked the a .d. 335. 
thirtieth, as the Council of Nicsea had marked the 
twentieth, year of the reign of Constantine, marks 
also the changed relations of parties and events 
since the earlier assembly. Many of the same 
persons were then assembled, but Athanasius was 
now the defendant instead of Arius. Paphnutius 
and Potammon were there, as before, but on the 
losing side. The hero of the day was no longer 
Hosius or Eustathius, but Eusebius of Caesarea ; 
and under his auspices, and those of his partisans 
on the Arian or semi-Arian side, was dedicated the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It is 
one of the curious complications of ecclesiastical 
history, that this solemn event, so fraught with re- 
ligious associations for all future time, should be 
passed over without a word by the orthodox Atha- 
nasius, though the Empire was filled with his writ- 
ings at the very time, and that its only contemporary 
record should be from the heretic Eusebius, who as- 
sisted as Metropolitan of Palestine. 

The moment at last arrived when the union which 
the Emperor had so much at heart was to be decided. 

1 This is excused by Cedrenus (288), by the comparison of 
David being taken in by Ziba, 



252 



The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



Athanasius was removed from the fury of his enemies 
by an honourable exile at Treves. Arius was to be 
received in triumph at Constantinople. Such was 
the Emperor's determination, and it is characteristic 
of the position which he occupied in the Church, that 
in spite of the reluctance of the Orthodox party to 
acknowledge the heretic, yet there seemed to them 
no alternative but to obey. " Let me or Arius die 
"before to-morrow," was the prayer of Alexander, 
the Bishop of Constantinople. That there was the 
. third course of refusing to admit him never seems 
to have occurred to any one, after the Emperor's 
will had once been made known. It is one of the 
few occasions in history where a difficult crisis has 
been solved by an unexpected death. That the 
sudden illness and decease of the aged Arius was 
a Divine judgment in behalf of the doctrine which 
he had opposed, will now be held by no one who 
has any regard to the warnings of Christ Himself 
against any such inference. That it was the effect 
of poison, is contradicted by the actual circumstances 
of his end. Like most ecclesiastical wonders of this 
kind, it was neither a miracle nor a crime; it was 
a natural coincidence, and no more. 

It was, however, the passing away of one of the 
chief actors in the Council of Mcaea ; and now was 
come the end of the chiefest of all. There is no 
act of the life of Constantine so deeply instructive 
as his death. 

The mortal It was Easter, in the year 337. In the Church 
ConTtan- °f the Apostles at Constantinople he had passed the 
night, with more than his usual devotion, in pre- 



tine 



Lect. VI. His Baptism and Death. 



2 53 



paration for his Persian expedition. An illness a.d. 337. 
supervened ; he went to Helenopolis to try the 
mineral waters in the neighbourhood. The illness 
increased ; a sinister suspicion 1 of poison stole through 
the palace. He felt that it was mortal, and now at 
last he determined on taking the step, long delayed, 
but not yet impossible, of admission to the Christian 
Church. 

Incredible as it may seem to our notions, he who His bap- 
had five and twenty years ago been convinced of the 
Christian faith ; he who had opened the first General 
Council of the Church ; he who had called himself 
a Bishop of Bishops ; he who had joined in the 
deepest discussions of theology ; he who had preached 
to rapt audiences ; he who had established Christianity 
as the religion of the empire ; he who had been con- 
sidered by Christian bishops an inspired oracle and 
apostle of Christian wisdom 2 , was himself not yet 
received into the Christian Church. He was not 
yet baptized ; he had not even been received as 
a catechumen. A death-bed baptism was to the half- 
converted Christians of that age, what a death-bed 
communion is to those of our own. In later ages, 
as we have seen, it was endeavoured to antedate the 
baptism of the Emperor by ten or twenty years. 
But at that time it was too common to attract any 
special notice. Good and bad motives alike conduced 
to the same end, and of all of these Constantine 
was a complete example. He, Slike many of his 
countrymen, as has been indicated, united, after his 



1 Philost. ii. 4. 



2 Eus. Laud. Const, c. 2, 11. 



254 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



a.d. 337. conversion, a sincere belief in Christianity with a 
lingering attachment to Paganism. He, like some 
even of the noblest characters in the Christian Church, 
regarded baptism, much as the Pagans regarded 
the lustrations and purifications of their own re- 
ligion, as a complete obliteration and expiation of all 
former sins ; and therefore, partly from a superstitious 
dread, partly from the prudential desire, not peculiar to 
that or any age, " of making the best of both worlds," 
he would naturally defer the ceremony to the moment 
when it would include the largest amount of the 
past, and leave the smallest amount of the future. 
To him, as to all Christians of those times, baptism 
still preserved much of its original significance, 
which it has inevitably lost in the course of ages. 
It was still regarded as the solemn passage from one 
state of life to another ; from the darkness and 
profligacy of the heathen world to the light and 
the purity of the Christian society ; a step taken not 
as the natural accompaniment of birth and education, 
but as a serious pledge of conviction and of pro- 
fession. The baptism of infants, no doubt, prevailed, 
just as the communion of infants prevailed also. 
But each of the sacraments must often have been 
deferred to a time when the candidates could give 
their whole minds to the subject. If, even a century 
later, such men as Ambrose and Augustine, born hi 
Christian families, trained hi Christian schools, and 
with a belief hirthe mam truths of Christianity, 
were still unbaptized, the one in his thirty-fourth the 
other in his thirty- second year, we may be sure that 
the practice was sufficiently common in the far more 



Lect. VI. 



His Baptism. 



255 



unsettled age of Const antine, to awake no scruple a.d. 337, 
in him, and to provoke no censure from his eccle- 
siastical advisers. 

The whole event is related in the utmost detail. 
In the Church at Helenopolis, in the unusual posture 
of devotion, that of kneeling, he was admitted to 
be a catechumen by the imposition of hands. He 
then moved to a palace in the suburb of Nicomedia, 
and then calling the Bishops around him, amongst 
whom the celebrated Arian, Eusebius, was chief, — 
announced that once he had hoped to receive the 
purification of baptism, after our Saviour's example, 
in the streams of the Jordan ; but God's will seemed 
to be that it should be here, and he therefore re- 
quested to receive the rite without delay. "And 
u so," says his biographer, " alone of Eoman Em- 
" perors from the beginnmg of time, was Constantine 
" consecrated to be a witness of Christ in the second 
" birth of baptism." The Imperial purple was at last 
removed ; he was clothed instead in robes of dazzling 
whiteness; his couch was covered with white also: 
in the white robes of baptism, on a white death- 
bed, he lay, in expectation of his end. If the strict 
doctrine of Athanasius were pressed, Constantine 
even at this moment failed of his wishes ; for his 
baptism was from the hands of an Arian Bishop, 
which, according to Athanasius \ was no baptism at 
all. But these theories are happily never pressed 
home to individuals. Constantine' s baptism has 
always been considered as valid both in the East 



1 Ath. Orat. c. Ar.i. 42, 43. 



256 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VJ. 

a.d. 337. and West. The Arian baptism and the Catholic 
canonisation must be left to neutralise each other. 
Eecaii of One act he is said to have performed on his death- 

Athana- 



sms. 



bed, which raises him above the sphere of both 
parties. In spite of the ojDposition of Eusebius 1 , he 
ordered the recall of the exiled Athanasius ; and thus, 
as Theodoret observes, illustrated in his last hours the 
sacred but often forgotten duty of turning one of 
our two ears to hear the side of the accused party. 
The Arian influence, though it was enough to 
make him content with Arian consolations and Arian 
sacraments, was not enough to make him refuse 
justice at that supreme moment to the oppressed 
chief of the opposite party. 
Death of His own delight at the accomplishment of the 

Constan- 

tine. ceremony was excessive ; and when the officers of 
his army entered the chamber of death, with bitter 
lamentations, to make their last farewell, he bade 
them rejoice in his speedy departure heavenwards. 
He gave his will into the custody of the Arian 
chaplain Eustocius, who had consoled the last hours 
of his sister Constantia, with orders that it should 
be given to his son Constantius. 2 At noon on 
Whit- Sunday, the 22nd of May, in the sixty-fourth 
year of his age, and the thirty-first of his reign, 
he expired. 

A wild wail of grief arose from the army and 
the people, on hearing that Constantine was dead. 
The body was laid out in a coffin of gold, and carried 
by a procession of the whole army 3 , headed by his 



1 Theod. i. 31. 



2 Soc. i. 39. 



3 Theod. i. 32. 



Lect. VI. 



His Burial. 



257 



son Constans, to Constantinople. For three months 
it lay there in state in the palace, lights burning 
round and guards watching. During all this time 
the Empire was without a head. Constans, the 
youngest son, was there alone. The two elder sons 
had not arrived. He was still " Augustus." All 
went , on as though he were yet alive. One dark 
shadow from the great tragedy of his life reached 
to his last end, and beyond it. It is said that the 
Bishop of Mcomedia, to whom the Emperor's will 
had been confided by Eustocius, alarmed at its 
contents, immediately placed it for security in the 
dead man's hand, wrapped in the vestments of 
death. There it lay till Const an tius arrived, and 
read his father's dying bequest. It was believed to 
express the Emperor's conviction that he had been 
poisoned by his brothers and their children 1 , and to 
call on Constantius to avenge his death. That be- 
quest was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the 
surviving princes of the Imperial family. Two alone 
escaped. With such a mingling of light and darkness 
did Constantine close his career. 

When the tidings reached Rome the old metropolis 
steadily ignored the revolution that had passed over 
the world in the person of the deceased Emperor. 
He was regarded but as one in the series of the 
Caesars. He was enrolled, like his predecessors, as a 
matter of course, amongst the gods of the heathen 
Olympus. Incense was offered before his statue. 



vol. 1. 



1 Philost. ii. 18. 

s 



258 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



A picture of his apotheosis was prepared. Festivals 
were celebrated in his honour. 1 

But in his own Christian city of Constantinople he 
had himself arranged the altered celebration of his 
death. Not amongst the gods and heroes of hea- 
thenism, but amongst those who now seemed to him 
the nearest approach to them, the Christian Apostles, 
his lot was to be cast. He had prepared for his 
mausoleum a Church sometimes, like that which he 
had founded at Rome, called " the Church of St. 
Peter" 2 , but more usually " the Church of the Apo- 
stles," or by a name truly indicating the mixture of 
Pagan and Christian ideas which led to its erection, 
the "Heroon" Twelve pillars commemorated them, 
six on each side, and between them was his own 
tomb. He would not be " Divus he would be 
" Isapostolos " (equal to the Apostles). This is the 
title by which he is canonised, and this title ex- 
presses the precise point of transition from the old 
to the new religion. 

Thither the body was borne. 3 Constantius was 
now present; and as it reached the church the 
Prince (for he, too, was still an unbaptised catechu- 
men) withdrew with the Pagan guards, and left the 
Imperial corpse alone, as it lay aloft in the centre of 
the church in its sarcophagus of porphyry. 4 Prayers 
were offered for his soul; he was placed amongst the 

1 See Beugnot, Hist, de Paganisme. 

2 Chrysost. Horn. 26 on 2 Cor. 3 g ee Theod. i. 34. 

4 Cedrenus, i. 519. Chrysostom (Horn. 26 on 2 Cor.) says that 
the coffin was in the vestibule, to show his inferiority to the 
Apostles. 



Lect. VI. 



His Tomb. 



Apostles ; and he formally received the names which 
he had borne in life, and which then became so 
purely personal that they descended to his sons, 
" Victor, Maximus, Augustus." 

" If any one doubts what I have said of him," says 
Theocloret, " let him look at what is still done at his 
" sepulchre and his statue." Lights were burned 
before him; prayers were offered up to him; mira- 
cles believed to be wrought by him. 1 So pas- 
sionate was the attachment of the people of Con- 
stantinople to the tomb of their founder, that the 
attempt to remove it for safety to another church, 
whilst its own was being repaired, provoked a san- 
guinary riot. 2 

The church became the royal burial-place of the 
Byzantine Emperors. 3 There they all lay in Im- 
perial state till in the fourth crusade the coffins 
were rifled and the bodies cast out. 4 The church 
itself remained till the capture of the city by Maho- 
met II. 5 , on whom its ancient associations had still 
so much power that, though he destroyed it, he built 
upon its site the magnificent mosque which bears his 
name, and in which he himself is buried, the founder 
of the second series of Byzantine sovereigns, as Con- 
stantine had been of the first. 6 

So passed away the first Christian Emperor, the 
first Defender of the Faith, — the first Imperial 

1 See Philost. ii. 19 and notes. 2 Soc. ii. 38. 

3 The bodies of S. Andrew and S. Tirnotheus and S. Luke 
were transported thither to increase its sanctity. Philost. iii. 2. 

4 Theod. i. 34. 

s Von Hammer, i. 390. 6 Ibid. i. 387, 400. 

s 2 



260 The Emperor Constantine. Lect. VI. 



patron of the Papal see, and of the whole Eastern 
Church, — the first founder of the Holy Places, — 
Pagan and Christian, orthodox and heretical, liberal 
and fanatical, not to be imitated or admired, but 
much to be remembered and deeply to be studied. 



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262 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



LECTUEE VII. 

ATHANASIUS. 



The Authorities for the Life of Athanasius are as follows : — 
I. Ancient. 

1. Works of S. Athanasius (especially the His- 

torical Tracts, with the learned annotations 
of Dr. Newman). 

2. Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Rufinus. 

3. 21st Oration of S. Gregory Nazianzen. 

4. Letters of S. Basil. 

II. Of the Modern may be selected : 

1. Tillemont. (vol. viii.) 

2. Mohler. (" Athanasius, the Great:" German 

and French.) 

3. Bishop Kaye. ( cf Some Account of the Writings 

of Athanasius :" appended to the work cited 
p. 64. 



As the life of Constantine represents what may be 
called the secular and Imperial aspect of the Church 
of the fourth century, and of the Eastern Church 
generally, so its ecclesiastical and theological aspect 
is represented in the life of Athanasius. Like Con- 
stantine, although in a less degree, he presents to 
us one of those mixed characters which require 
such powers of discrimination as, in the study of 
ecclesiastical history, are at least as important as the 



Lect. VII. As representing Egyptian Church. 263 



powers of unbounded admiration or unmeasured in- 
vective. He also exhibits the peculiar tendencies of 
his age and Church, in forms more likely to impress 
themselves on our memory than we could find in any 
other ecclesiastic of the Eastern Church, with the 
single exception of Chrysostom. And his course is 
so much the more significant than that of Chryso- 
stom, as it includes a wider range of events and 
involves far more lasting consequences. As in the 
case of Constantine, I shall take for granted a general 
knowledge of the history of Athanasius, and shall 
dwell only on those points which bring out clearly 
the sentiments of the time, the impression which he 
made on his contemporaries, and the permanent ex- 
amples and warnings that he has left to the Church. 
What is thus to be noticed may be placed under 
three heads : — 

I. His connection with the Church of Egypt, in- 
cluding his early life and episcopal career. 

II. His contests with the Emperors ; which will 
include the chief actions of his middle life. 

III. His general character as a man and a theo- 
logian ; which will include also the close of his 
course. 

I. He is the most remarkable representative of the As Egyp- 

tian repre- 

Church of Egypt. So he is still regarded by the sentative. 
Coptic Church, and so he must have been at the time. 
What his own race and lineage may have been it is 
difficult to determine. We know that he himself wrote 
and spoke in Greek, but he also was able to converse 
in Coptic. His personal appearance throws but little His appear- 
light on this question. He was of very small stature, 

S 4 



264 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



a dwarf rather than a man (so we know from the 
taunt of Julian) 1 ; but, as we are assured by Gre- 
gory Nazianzen, of almost angelic beauty of face and 
expression. 2 To this tradition adds that he had a 
slight stoop in his figure ; a hooked nose, and small 
mouth; a short beard, which spread out into large 
whiskers; and light auburn hair. 3 This last charac- 
teristic has been found on the heads of Egyptian 
mummies 4 , and therefore is compatible with a pure 
Egyptian descent. His name might seem to indicate 
a Grecian parentage; but the case of " Antony," who 
was an undoubted Copt, shows that this cannot be 
relied upon. 

His child- His first appearance is in a well-known story 5 , which, 
though doubted in later times from its supposed in- 
congruity with the dignity of a great saint, has every 
indication of truth. 6 Alexander, Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, was entertaining his clergy in a tower or lofty 
house overlooking the expanse of sea beside the Alex- 
andrian harbour. He observed a groupe of children 
playing on the edge of the shore, and was struck by the 
grave appearance of their game. His attendant clergy 
went, at his orders, to catch the boys and bring them 
before the Bishop, who taxed them with having played 
at religious ceremonies. At first, like boys caught at 
a mischievous game, they denied; but, at last, con- 

1 Ep. 51 : fj.r]de aviip, dW avdpo)7rlffKog evreXrjc. 

2 Orat. xxi. 9. 3 Acta Sanctorum, May 2, c. 33. 

4 Morton, Crania Hieroglyphica, 4to., p. 22; and the account 
of a mummy unrolled by Mr. Birch of the British Museum. 
* Rufinus ; Socrates ; Sozomen. 

6 The chronological difficulty of the day on which the event 
occurred is not material. 



Lect. VII. 



His Childhood. 



265 



fessed that they had been imitating the sacrament 
of baptism; that one of them had been selected to 
perform the part of Bishop, and that he had duly 
dipped them in the sea, with all the proper questions 
and addresses. When Alexander found that these 
forms had been observed, he determined that the 
baptism was valid ; he himself added the conse- 
crating oil of confirmation ; and was so much struck 
with the knowledge and gravity of the boy-bishop 
that he took him under his charge. This little boy 
was Athanasius; already showing the union of se- 
riousness and sport which we shall see in his after 
life. That childish game is an epitome of the eccle- 
siastical feelings of his time and of his country. 
The children playing on the shore, the old man 
looking at them with interest ; these, indeed, are in- 
cidents which belong to every age of the world. 
But only in the early centuries could have been 
found the immersion of the baptized, the necessity of 
a Bishop to perform the ceremony, the mixture of 
freedom and superstition which could regard as se- 
rious a sacrament so lightly performed. In the Coptic 
Church is there the best likeness of this Eastern 
reverence for the sacred acts of children. A child 
still draws the lots in the Patriarchal elections. By 
children is still performed the greater part of their 
innocent childlike services. 

From this incident arose the connection of Atha- Arch- 
nasius with the aged Alexander. He became his Aiex- 
Archdeacon, an office very different from that which andria * 
is called by the same name amongst ourselves. It 
was then literally what the word implies, " the chief 



266 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



of the deacons," the head of that body of deacons 
whose duty it is to attend upon the Bishop. Of this 
kind is the office which still bears the name in the 
Eastern Church, and which is rendered illustrious to 
Eastern Christians by the two great names of " Arch- 
deacon Stephen " and " Archdeacon Athanasius." It 
was in this capacity that he followed his Bishop to 
the Council of Mcsea, and defended the Orthodox 
cause with an energy which already awakened the 
jealousy and the admiration of all who heard him. 1 
His conse- I n a f ew weeks after the close of the Council Alexan- 

cration. 

der died, and Athanasius succeeded to the vacant 
see. It was a marked epoch, in every sense, for the 
Egyptian Primacy. Down to this time (according to 
the tradition of the Alexandrian Church itself 2 ) the 
election to this great post had been conducted in a 
manner unlike that of the other sees of Christendom. 
Not the Bishop, but twelve Presbyters, were the 
electors, and nominators 3 , and (according to Euty- 
chius) consecrators. It was on the death of Alexan- 
der that this ancient custom was exchanged for one 

1 See Lecture HI. 

2 Jerome speaks of the custom as having lasted only till the 
Bishops Heraclas and Dionysius (Ep. ad Evangel. 85). But the 
tradition of the Alexandrian Church, as preserved in Eutychius 
(i. 331), maintained that it lasted till Alexander. The change 
which he ascribes to Heraclas is another, which may have led 
to Jerome's statement ; viz. that down to that time there had been 
no Bishop in Egypt except the Bishop of Alexandria. The whole 
question is well set forth in Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, ii. 342. 

3 " Nominabant " is the word used by Jerome. This, though 
it does not contradict, does not necessarily imply, the more 
detailed account which Eutychius gives of the actual imposition 
of hands and blessing. 



Lect. VII. 



As Bishop of Alexandria. 267 



more nearly resembling that which prevailed else- 
where. Fifty Bishops of the neighbouring dioceses 
were convened for the first time, and proceeded to 
the election. Athanasius had been named both by 
the dying Primate and by the people as the new 
Bishop. He, setting an example which has since be- 
come a fixed rule in the Coptic Church, endeavoured 
to escape election by concealment or absence. To 
this day the formalities which accompany the elec- 
tion of his successors in the see of Alexandria are 
intended to indicate the same reluctance. The future 
Patriarch is brought to Cairo, loaded with chains 
and strictly guarded, as if to prevent the possibility 
of escape. 

According to the Arian tradition, the Bishops were 
assembled in great numbers, when Athanasius sud- 
denly appeared late in the evening, secured two of 
the Bishops within the church of S. Dionysius, bar- 
ricaded the building against the majority outside, 
and so in spite of their remonstrances, and even ana- 
themas, was consecrated; and afterwards, as if by 
a letter from the municipality of Alexandria, pro- 
cured the Imperial confirmation of the act. 1 The 
extraordinary and mysterious circumstances, which 
on any hypothesis attended the appointment of 
Athanasius, may account for the variations in the 
history. 

Alexandria had already numbered many famous 
theologians in her catechetical school, but, with the 
exception perhaps of Dionysius, Athanasius was her 



1 Philost. ii. 11. 



268 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



first distinguished Bishop, the first who in power 
and character was worthy of the situation. 

The see of Alexandria was then the most important 

Church and _ r 

See of in the world. Alexandria, till the rise of Constan- 

Alexandria. 

tinople, was the most powerful city in the East. 
The prestige of its founder still clung to it. 1 

Egypt, even in the Pagan parts of the Empire, was 
still regarded as the ancient nurse of religious mys- 
teries, and the possession of the Temple of Serapis 
made Alexandria the chief sanctuary of Egypt. The 
Alexandrian Church was the only great seat of Chris- 
tian learning. Its episcopate was " the Evangelical 
see," 2 as founded by the Evangelist S. Mark. " The 
chair of S. Mark" was, as it still is, the name of 
the Patriarchal throne of Egypt. Its occupant, as 
we have seen, was the only potentate of the time 
who bore the name of " Pope." 3 After the Council 
of Nicaea he became " the Judge of the World," from 
his decisions respecting the celebration of Easter 4 ; 
and the obedience paid to his judgment in all matters 
of learning, secular and sacred, almost equalled that 
paid in later days to the ecclesiastical authority of 
the Popes of the West. The " head of the Alex- 
" andrian Church," says Gregory Nazianzen 5 , " is 
" the head of the world." 

In his own province his jurisdiction was even more 
extensive than that of the Roman Pontiff. The 
Episcopate of Egypt, which had but a doubtful 
existence in early times, always remained subor- 

1 Julian, Ep. 51. Comp. Sharpe's Egypt, c. 16. 

2 Neale's Hist, of Alexandrian Church, i. 6. 

3 Lecture III. 4 Neale, i. 113. « Oat. 21. 



Lect. VII. As Bishop of Alexandria. 



269 



dinate to the Alexandrian Patriarch, beyond what 
was the case in any Church of the West. Not only 
did he consecrate all the Bishops throughout his dio- 
cese, but no Bishop had any independent power of 
ordination. The Egyptian Bishops at Chalcedon pro- 
tested with tears and cries, that, till a Patriarch was 
given them, they were powerless to do anything 
commanded by the Council. 1 

In civil affairs the chief of the Alexandrian Church 
carried himself almost like a sovereign prince. " At 
" a distance from court, and at the head of an im- 
" mense capital, the Patriarch of Alexandria had 
" gradually usurped the state and authority of a civil 
" magistrate, . . . and the Pre/ects of Egypt were 
" awed or provoked by the Imperial power of these 
" Christian Pontiffs." 2 

Not only in name and office however, but in fact, 
Athanasius was the representative of the Egyptian 
Church. 

1. In his Pontificate the Church of Alexandria Conver- 

1 a 1 a . . sion of 

received its only important accession. A traveller Abyssinia, 
presented himself from the distant and then almost 
unknown Abyssinia. His story was simple and 
touching. It was one of the earliest instances of a 
Christian mission following in the wake of scientific 
discovery. A philosopher of Tyre, Moripius by 
name, had embarked on a voyage of investigation 
down the Red Sea. He had taken with him two 
children, relations of his own, to teach on the journey. 
On his return the vessel touched for water at a 
port of Ethiopia. The savage inhabitants attacked 
1 Neale, i. ill, 112. 2 Gibbon, c. xlvii. ; Neale, i. 112. 



270 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



them and massacred all the crew. The two boys, 
Frumentius and Edesius, faithful to the purpose for 
which they had been brought, were sitting under a 
tree by the sea shore learning their lessons. The 
savages were touched by the sight, took them to the 
king of the country, where they gradually rose into 
his confidence and that of his widow, as the instruc- 
tors of his son. When the prince came of age, the 
two Christians returned. But Frumentius determined 
to bring news of this opening for Christianity to the 
great centre of Christian civilisation (like an earlier 
Livingstone), unfolded his tidings to Athanasius, 
and then, layman and stranger as he was, was at 
once consecrated to the episcopate. 

He returned, and under his new name of Salama 
became the founder of the Church of Abyssinia. 

6( Hail him with the voice of joy, 
Sing praises to. Salama; 
The door of pity, of mercy, 
And of pleasant grace." 1 

TheEgyp- 2. There was another offshoot of the Coptic 
mHs!"*" Church with which Athanasius was in the closest 
relations. Egypt was the parent of monachism, 
and the monks and Athanasius were inseparable 
allies. In his early youth he had been himself for 
a short time a hermit. In later life he poured forth 
to them the news of the outer world. Of Antony, 
the founder of the monastic system, he was the bosom 
friend and biographer. He had often sought him out 
in the desert waste, and according to the practice still 
pursued in the East, as a mark of deference from 

1 Harris, Highlands of Ethiopia, iii. 89. 



Lect. VII. 



As Friend of the Hermits. 



27 



an inferior to a superior (as in the case of Elisha and 
Elijah), poured water over his hands as he washed. 1 

Antony, though unable to speak Greek, or to read 
or write 2 , entered with the liveliest interest into 
the theological controversies of the young Bishop. 
In the most critical moment of the struggle of 
Athanasius, he appeared suddenly in Alexandria to 
give the sanction of his mysterious presence. Hea- 
thens, as well as Christians, ran to see " the man of 
God," 3 as he was called. Athanasius escorted him 
to the gate of the city as he departed. 

In the next generation the attachment of the 
monks of the desert to the see of Alexandria 
became a fixed political institution, like the armed 
military orders of the middle ages, like the Jesuits 
in the sixteenth century. But in the time of 
Athanasius, it was the innocent, natural, enthusiastic 
devotion of man to man, friend to friend, disciple to 
teacher, and teacher to disciple. Paul, the com- 
panion of Antony, wished to be buried in the mantle 
given by Athanasius to Antony, in order to assure 
himself that he had died in communion with Atha- 
nasius. Amnion, the Egyptian monk, accompanied 
Athanasius to Eome, and astonished every one by 
the eagerness with which, regardless of all the other 
wonders of the great city, he ran, like a dervish of 
the present day, to throw himself before the tombs 
of S. Peter and S. Paul. 

In the caves of the hermits, along the banks of the 
Nile, Athanasius was received whenever his residence 
in the capital was rendered insecure. As he ap- 

1 Vit. Ant. Prref. 2 Vit. Ath. 74, 75. 3 Vit. Ant. 70. 



272 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



proached, and saw the innumerable crowds issuing 
from their cells, he burst forth into the Prophet's ex- 
clamation : " Who are these that fly as a cloud, and 
"as doves to their cotes?" whilst they, with thou- 
sands of blazing torches, their Abbot leading his ass, 
escorted him to their impregnable retreats. 1 

3. There was yet a third close bond of connection 
between Athanasius and the Coptic Church. The 
Arian party at Alexandria was essentially Greek. 
The Orthodox party, or, as it was called by its ene- 
mies, the Sabellian, and afterwards the Eutychian, 
party, was essentially national. "S. Chrysostom," 
as it has been truly said, " could never have been a 
" Monophysite, nor S. Cyril a Nestorian." 2 

To this national or Egyptian party belonged the 
great body of the hermits and monks, who, as their 
names and their ignorance of Greek indicate, were 
genuine Copts. To this party belonged the Christian 
populace of Alexandria. Of this party, or rather 
nation, Athanasius was the representative; and to 
him and to his doctrine the nation clung with a 
tenacity which went on increasing with the lapse of 
years. The Imperial Government at Constantinople, 
with its Greek adherents at Alexandria, was gra- 
dually set more and more at defiance. 

"When the Council of Chalcedon condemned what 
the Egyptian Church believed to be a legitimate in- 
ference from the doctrine of Athanasius 3 , the breach 

1 Vit. Pachom. (quoted in Vit. Ath., Opp. i. p. Ixxiv.) 

2 Neale, Alex. Church, i. 36. 

3 In the treatise of Athanasius quoted by Cyril (Athan. ii. 1), 
the single nature of Christ is expressly asserted. Its genuineness 



Lect. VII. As of the National Church. 



273 



was final. The adherents of the Council were con- 
temptuously called Synodites or Imperialists. The 
Egyptian Church, with its sister communions in 
Syria., gloried in the exclusive title of Orthodox. 1 
Kather than be reconciled to the heterodox adhe- 
rents of the Empire (as it deemed the Greek Church 
to be), it surrendered itself and them into the hands 
of the Saracens. To this day the old feud still con- 
tinues. Their hatred of the Greek Church makes 
them of all Christian Churches the most intolerant 
of other Christians. They will never intermarry 
with them. They prefer Mahomet anism. The whole 
Nubian Church became Moslem, rather than join the 
Church of Constantinople. 2 

Thus strong was the union of religious and na- 
tional feeling which already in his lifetime rallied 
round Athanasius, and assisted in making him for- 
midable to his opponents. No fugitive Stuart in the 
Scottish Highlands could count more securely on the 
loyalty of his subjects, than did Athanasius in his 
hiding-places in Egypt count upon the faithfulness 
and secrecy of his countrymen. Sometimes it was 
the hermits who afforded him shelter in their rocky 
fastnesses ; sometimes his fellow-townsmen, supported 
him as he lay hid in his father's tomb outside the walls 
of their city ; sometimes it was the beautiful Alexan- 
drian maiden who, in her old age, delighted to tell 

has on this account been vehemently questioned, but apparently 
with no other reason against it. (See Robertson's History of the 
Church, i. 436.) 

1 See the History of John of Ephesus, passim. 

2 Lane's Modern Egyptians, ii. 312, 333 ; Harris's Ethiopia, 
iii. 68. 

VOL. I. T 



274 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



how, when lie had suddenly appeared at midnight 
wrapped in his short tunic and red cloak, she had 
concealed and tended him in her house, with pro- 
visions and books, till he was able, as suddenly, to re- 
appear amongst his astonished friends. 1 His whole 
course was that of an adventurous and wandering 
prince, rather than of a persecuted theologian ; and, 
when in the brief intervals of triumph he was enabled 
to return to his native city, his entrance was like that 
of a Sovereign rather than of a Prelate. 
Entrance One such scene, thoroughly Egyptian in character, 
andria. is recorded by Gregory Nazianzen, which lingered in 
the recollections of all who had seen it, as the most 
splendid spectacle of the age. It seems to have been 
his first return after the death of Constantine. There 
was more than delight ; there was awe, almost amount- 
ing to consternation, at the greatness of the event. 
The population of Alexandria poured forth, as was 
their habit on such occasions, not in the indiscrimi- 
nate confusion of a modern populace, but in a certain 
stateliness of arrangement. Each trade and pro- 
fession kept its own place. The men and women, 
as in Oriental countries, were apart. The children 
formed a mass by themselves. As the mighty stream 
rolled out of the gates, it was (this was the truly 
Egyptian figure that suggested itself) as if the Nile, 
at the height of its flood, scattering fertility as it 
went, had turned in its course and flowed back- 
wards from Alexandria towards the first outpost of 
the city. As now, so then, the usual mode of moving 
to and fro along the roads of Egypt was on asses. 



1 Palladius, c. 135. 



Lect. VII. His Popularity. 275 

Gregory, as he describes Athanasius so approaching, 
is carried into an extravagance of comparison and of 
symbolism. He thinks of the triumphal entry into 
Jerusalem; he thinks that the asses typified the hea- 
then population whom Athanasius had loosed from 
their ignorance. Branches of trees were waved aloft ; 
carpets of all the gayest colours and richest textures 
of Alexandria were spread under his feet. There 
was a long unbroken shout of applause; thousands 
of hands clapped with delight ; the air was scented 
with the fragrant ointments poured out ; the city at 
night flashed with illuminations ; public and private 
entertainments were given in every house. In a wild 
enthusiasm of devotion, women became nuns, men 
became hermits; children entreated their parents, 
parents urged their children, to sacrifice themselves 
to the monastic life. 1 In a still nobler sense of a 
Christian revival, the hungry and the orphans were 
sheltered and maintained, and every household by its 
devotion seemed to be transformed into a Church. 2 

Long afterwards when a popular Prefect of Alex- 
andria was received with vast enthusiasm, and two 
bystanders were comparing it with all possible de- 
monstrations that they could imagine, and the younger 
had said : " Even if the Emperor Constantius 3 himself 
" were to come, he could not be so received." The 
elder replied with a smile, and an Egyptian oath : 
" Do you call that a wonderful sight? The only thing 
" to which you ought to compare it is the reception 
u of the great Athanasius." 

1 Greg. Nazianz. 28. 2 Ath. Hist. Arian. § 25. 

3 Greg. Nazianz. 29. This expression shows that the return 
spoken of was that after Constan tine's death. 



276 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



His con- n. This leads us to the second aspect in which we 

tests with m 1 

the Em- must consider the life of Athanasius. It is not merely 

perors. 

as the Egyptian saint, but as the antagonist of the 
whole Church and Empire of the time, that his career 
has been invested with such singular interest, as 
that, of all the saints of the early Church, he is the 
only one who has actually kindled the cold and criti- 
cal pages of Gibbon into a fire of enthusiasm. 

He had, as we have seen, the support of his own 
party and his own nation behind him. Still it is 
evident that he was one of those strong characters 
who render to others a stronger support than others 
can ever render to them. 
His isoia- In the Nicene Council 1 he had almost stood alone 
against the majority, which, in spite of his remon- 
strances, received the Melitians. In the events which 
occupied the rest of his life, he was almost the only 
high ecclesiastic who stood firm against the Arians. 
We must bear in mind how completely the Arian 
party had taken possession of the court, the dignities, 
even the Councils, of the time. Such rapid revolu- 
tions in the decline and rise of theological parties in 
royal or popular favour are amongst the most usual 
phenomena of all ecclesiastical history. And it is 
by its solitary protest against subservience to the 
religious fashion of the age, that the life of Atha- 
nasius has acquired a proverbial significance, which 
cannot be too often impressed on theological stu- 
dents. " Scripture," it has been well said, " no where 
"leads us to suppose that the circumstance of all 
" men speaking well of us is any ground for sup- 

1 See Lecture V. p. 188. 



Lect. VII. 



Against the World. 



277 



" posing that we are acceptable in the sight of God. 
" The jealousy or fear of some, the reticence of others, 
" the terrorism of a few, have really nothing to do with 
"the questions at issue in theological controversy. 
u They cannot have the slightest influence on the 
" meaning of words, or on the truth of facts. There 
" is a deeper work for theologians, which is not de- 
" pendent on the opinions of men, and which can 
" hardly expect to win much popular favour, so far 
"as it runs counter to the feelings of religious par- 
"ties. But he who bears a part in it may feel a 
" confidence which no popular caresses or religious 
" sympathy could inspire, that he has, by Divine 
"help, been enabled to plant his foot somewhere 
" beyond the waves of time." 

This, whether we agree or whether we disagree 
with the objects of Athanasius, is the permanent lesson 
which his life teaches. It is the same as that which 
we are taught by the life of Elijah in the history of 
the Jewish Church, and by the lives of some of the 
early Reformers in the Christian Church. It is the 
special point which Hooker 1 has brought out in the 
splendid passage which, though well-known, I can- 
not forbear to quote, as giving in a short compass 
the events of the period in the life of Athanasius, 
during which the doctrine of the Arians had be- 
come the religion of the Government and of the 
Church : — 

" Athanasius, by the space of forty-six years, from 
" the time of his consecration till the last hour of his 
" life in this world, they never suffered to enjoy 



1 Eccl. Pol. v. 42. 



278 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



" the comfort of a peaceable day. The heart of 
" Constantine stolen from him; Constantius his 
" scourge and torment by all the ways that malice, 
" armed with sovereign authority, could devise and 
" use; under Julian no rest given him; and in the 
" days of Yalens as little. Crimes there were laid 
44 to his charge many. . . . His judges were ever- 
44 more the self-same men by whom his accusers 
44 were suborned. . . . Those Bishops and Prelates 
44 who should have counted his cause theirs . . . 
44 were sure by bewraying their affection towards 
44 him to brhig upon themselves those maledictions 
44 whereby, if they would not be drawn to seem 
44 his adversaries, yet others should be taught how 
44 unsafe it was to continue his friends. Whereupon 
44 it came to pass in the end that (very few excepted) 
44 all became subject to the sway of time ; saving 
44 only that some fell away sooner, some later ; . . . 
44 some were leaders in the host, . . . and the rest 
44 . . . either yielding through fear, or brought un- 
44 der with penury, or by flattery ensnared, or else 
44 beguiled through simplicity, which is the fairest 
44 excuse that well may be made for them. . . . 
44 Such was the stream of those times, that all 
44 men gave place unto it. . . . Only of Athanasius 
44 there was nothing observed through that long 
44 tragedy, other than such as very well became a 
44 wise man to do, and a righteous to suffer. So 
44 that this was the plain condition of those times; 
44 the whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius 
44 against it. Half a hundred years spent in doubt - 
44 ful trial, which of the two in the end would pre- 



Lect. VII. 



Against the World. 



" vail; the side which had all, or else the part which 
44 had no friend bnt God and death ; the one a de- 
44 fender of his innocency, the other a finisher of his 
" troubles." It is probably from the Latin version 
of this celebrated passage, that we derive the pro- 
verb, Athanasius contra mundum ; a proverb which, 
as I have observed on other occasions, well sets forth 
the claims of individual, private, solitary judgment, 
against the claims of general authority as set forth 
in the other equally well-known maxim, Quod sem- 
per, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. It is a proverb 
which, though few are worthy to claim for themselves, 
yet all may well take to heart as a warning against 
confounding popularity with truth, or isolation with 
heresy, or temporary depression with lasting defeat. 

The contest successively waged with Constantine, 
Constantius, Julian, and Valens, has been briefly and 
powerfully told by Gibbon, and elaborately worked 
out by Tillemont. Its details are as tedious and 
complicated, as its general interest is exciting and 
instructive. 

But there are a few points which may be selected 
as characteristic either of the man or the age. 

1. This contest with the Imperial power, and the contest 
long struggles which it cost the successive Emperors Empero 
to cope with him, are proofs of the freedom and 
independence of the Christian Church, in the midst 
of the general decay of those qualities in all the 
other institutions of the Empire. 

The general effect of this new principle 1 of life in 

1 See Lecture II. 

T 4 



28o 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



institutions of the Church has been already pointed 
out, but of individual instances of this new and 
disturbing force, which would never again let the 
world subside into its dull stagnation and inaction, 
Athanasius is the first grand example. The 44 med- 
" dling demagogue," 1 " the odious Athanasius," 2 
"the audacious conspirator, elated by his charac- 
" teristic rashness," 3 are the expressions by which 
Julian designates his rival in Egypt. "Although," 
says Gibbon, " his mind was tainted by the contagion 
"of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority 
" of character and abilities, which would have fitted 
" him far better than the degenerate sons of Constan- 
" tine for the government of a great monarchy." 4 
Personal, 2. The contest, however, did not resemble those 

HOt GCclc* 

siastical, which in the middle ages set the spiritual against the 
opposition. authority. In this respect Athanasius strictly 

preserves the character of the Oriental hierarchy 5 , 
which I have more than once noticed. The spiritual 
and the secular were hardly ever, as such, directly 
opposed. 6 During the whole of the first part of the 
quarrel, nothing can exceed the deference of Atha- 
nasius to the Imperial authority ; and the subsequent 
vehemence of his language is personal, rather than 
official. The accusations against him were also 
personal. It was not for heresy or orthodoxy that 
he was convened before the Council of Tyre, but 
for the murder of Arsenius, for breaking a sacred 

" Julian, Ep. 51. 2 Ibid. 6. 3 i bid . 26. 

4 Decline and Fall, iii. 355. 5 See Lectures I. X. XI. 

6 The nearest approach to such a collision is the charge brought 
against him by J ulian of baptizing Alexandrian ladies. Ep. 6. 



Lect. VII. 



Against the World. 



28 



chalice, for imposing a tax on sacred vestments, for 
conspiring against the Emperor, for consecrating a 
church without the Emperor's permission, for pre- 
venting the exportation of corn from Alexandria 
(a purely Egyptian charge) ; for procuring his re- 
instatement from an Imperial decree, after his de- 
position by a Council ; for refusing to leave Alexandria 
without an express command from the Emperor ; 
for corresponding with the rebel chief Magnentius. 
All of these charges were repudiated by Athanasius ; 
and of all, in the judgment of posterity as well as 
of his own time, he was acquitted, though in the last 
century Sir Isaac Newton condescended to use his 
great intellect in reviving them, for the purpose of 
undermining the character of a theological oppo- 
nent. True or false, however, they were such as had 
no ecclesiastical significance, except from the person 
against whom they were brought. 

3. But though Athanasius was not formally Arian 
attacked for heresy, and was therefore not, techni- attack 
cally speaking, a sufferer for the sake of his reli- 
gious creed, yet there can be no doubt that the 
annoyances and dangers to which he was exposed 
originated in theological enmity, and thus furnish 
the first signal instance of the strange sight of 
Christians persecuting Christians. We can hardly 
suppose that his opponents really believed him to 
be guilty of the murder of Arsenius, or of the de- 
tention of the Egyptian corn. But these were con- 
venient blinds for a theological hostility which they 
dared not openly avow. And it is important to 
observe that this wide persecution arose, not from 



282 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



the Orthodox against the heretics, but from the 
heretics against the Orthodox. This is a sample of 
what has often occurred since. We cannot deny 
or palliate the intolerance of established Churches, 
but we must never forget that it has been shared 
to the fullest extent by the intolerance of sects and 
heresies of every kind. Indeed, wherever it exists, 
it is a proof that sectarianism has eaten its way into 
the vitals of the Church itself. Whatever provo- 
cations had been given by the Orthodox party were 
far surpassed by the violence and unrelenting bitter- 
ness of the Arians. A single scene will suffice, as 
indicating at once the character of Athanasius and 
of the persecutions. He had been urged to retire 
from Alexandria ; but with the reverential obedience 
which, as we have seen, he kept up, at least in ap- 
pearance, for the Imperial authority, he refused to 
leave his post without an express warrant from the 
Emperor. What his enemies could not effect by 
law, they determined to effect by violence. A mob 
has, in all ages and amongst all shades of eccle- 
siastical party, been a ready instrument for theo- 
logical agitators against their opponents. Of all 
mobs the Alexandrian, whether heathen or Christian, 
was the most terrible. On this occasion it was 
united with the soldiers. The chief of the police 
was present, but apparently took no part in restrain- 
ing the outrages. 1 
Attack on On the night of Thursday the 9th of February 
ofs^Tneo^ 358, Athanasius with his congregation was, after 
the manner of the Coptic Church, keeping vigil 
1 Protest of the Alexandrians, § 5. 



Lect. VII. 



Against the World. 



283 



through the whole night in the Church of S. Theonas, 
in preparation for the Eucharist of" the following 
day. Suddenly, at midnight 1 , there was a tumult 
without. The church 2 , which was of unusual size, 
was surrounded with armed men. 3 The presence 
of mind for which he was famous did not desert the 
Bishop. Behind the altar was the Episcopal throne. 
On this he took his seat, and ordered his attendant 
deacon to read the 136th Psalm, which has for every 
verse the response, ' " For His mercy endureth for 
" ever." It was while these responses were being 
thundered forth by the congregation, that the doors 
burst open and the Imperial general and notary 
entered at the head of the soldiers. The soldiers 
were for a moment terror-struck by the chanting of 
the Psalm. 4 But as they pressed forward a shower of 
arrows flew through the church. The swords flashed 
in the light of the sacred torches, the din of their 
shouts mingled with the rattle of their arms. The 
wounded fell one upon another, and were trampled 
down ; the nuns were seized and stripped ; the 
church was plundered. Through this mass of 
horrors, the two Imperial officers and their at- 
tendants passed on to the screen 5 before the altar. 
Athanasius had refused to go till most of the con- 
gregation had retired. But now he was swept away 
in the crowd. 

In his own version 6 of the story, he is at a loss to 
account for his escape. But his diminutive figure 
may well have passed unseen ; and we learn, besides, 

1 Protest, § 3. 2 Apol. Const. § 19. 3 Protest, § 3. 

4 Soc. ii. 1. 5 Protest, § 3. 6 De Fuga, 24. 



284 Athanasius. Lect.VII. 

that lie was actually carried out in a swoon 1 , which 
sufficiently explains his own ignorance of the means 
of his deliverance. The church was piled with dead, 
and the floor was strewn with the swords and arrows 
of the soldiers. He vanished, no one knew whither, 
into the darkness of the winter night. 
His general This scene well introduces us to the consideration 

character. 

of another and more general side of the character of 
Athanasius. The qualities that seem most forcibly 
to have struck his contemporaries seem rather to 
have been the readiness 2 and versatility of his gifts. 
An Oxford poet, in the u Lyra Apostolica," has 
sung of 

ee The royal-hearted Athanase, 
With Paul's own mantle blest." 

His versa- Whatever may have been the intention of this 
comparison, it is certain that there was a resem- 
blance between the flexibility of Athanasius and 
the many-sided character of the Apostle whose boast 
it was to have "made himself all things to all men." 
None such had occurred before, and none such 
occurred again till the time of Augustine, perhaps 
not till the time of Francis Xavier. 

The hyperbolical language of Gregory Nazianzen 
shows the deep impression made by this, as it seemed, 
rare peculiarity. " He was," so Gregory describes 
him 3 , "a just distributer of praise and blame, ac- 
" cording as the case might be ; awakening the 
" sluggish, repressing enthusiasm; equally alert in 
" prevention or in cure ; single in his aims, manifold 
" in his modes of government ; wise in his speech, 

1 De Fuga, 4. 2 Julian, Ep. 51 : hrpe^ta. 3 Orat. c. 36. 



Lect. VII. 



His Character. 



285 



u still wiser in his intentions ; on a level with the 
" most ordinary men, yet rising to the height of the 
" most speculative; uniting in himself" (the ex- 
pression is worth preserving as one that could only 
have been used in that transitional state between 
heathenism and Christianity, which was described 
in my last Lecture) u the various attributes of all 
" the heathen gods. Hospitable, like [Jupiter] Philo- 
" xenius; listening to suppliants, like [Jupiter] Ike- 
" sius; averting evils, like [Apollo] Apotropseus; 
" binding men together, like [Hera] Zygius ; pure, 
" like [Pan] Parthenius ; a peacemaker, like [ Ju- 
" piter] Irenaeus; a reconciler, like [Jupiter] Dial- 
" lacterius ; a conductor to the shades below, like 
" [Hermes] Pompseus." 

Amongst the traits which may be specially selected, ^ our 
as bringing this part of his character before us, and 
also as being too much overlooked in the popular 
notions of him, the first is the remarkable quickness 
and humour of his address. 

Take his clever retort to Constantius, who, at 
the instigation of his Arian persecutors, had asked 
him to open a church for the Arians at Alexandria. 
" I will grant a church to the heretics at Alexandria, 
" as soon as you grant a church to the Orthodox at 
" Antioch." It is just the one retort, obvious in- 
deed, but unanswerable, that may always be made 
to an intolerant faction. They always shrink from 
the test. 

Take again the well-sustained and pointed irony of 
the scene in the Council of Tyre, where he produces 
the man whom he is accused of having murdered, 



236 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



and whose right hand he is supposed to have cut 
off. The muffled figure is introduced; he shows 
the face first, and asks all round : "Is this Arsenius, 
"whom I murdered?" He draws out from behind 
the cloak, first one hand and then the other : " Let 
" no one now ask for a third; for two hands, and 
" two only, has every human being received from the 
" Creator of all things." It has been often said 
that a man who can provoke or enjoy a laugh is sure 
to succeed with his fellow-creatures. We cannot 
doubt that such was Athanasius. 1 

Not less efficacious is the power of making use 
of a laugh or a jest, instead of serious argument. 
The grave Epiphanius ventured one day to ask Atha- 
nasius what he thought of the opinions of his dan- 
gerous supporter, the heretic Marcellus. Athanasius 
returned no answer ; but a significant smile broke 
out over his whole countenance. Epiphanius had 
sufficient humour to perceive that this meant " Mar- 
" cellus has had a narrow escape." 2 

So again, when he was asked his opinion on the 
common practice of death-bed baptisms, he replied 
with an apologue which admitted of no rejoinder. 
" An angel once said to my great predecessor: 
" 4 Peter [the Bishop of the see before Alexander], 
" why do you send me these sacks [these wind- 
a bags] carefully sealed up, with nothing whatever 
" inside?'" 3 

Another trait makes itself felt in the widespread 

1 Theod. i. 30. 

2 Epiph. Haer. lxxii. 4 : dia rov Tcpoaujirov fxeidiaffag V7rs<pr]ve. 
See Lecture III. 

3 Tillemont, Athan. c. 117. 



Lect. VII. 



As a Magician. 



287 



belief entertained that lie was the great magician of His magi- 

ti t. cal reputa 

his age. It was founded no doubt on his rapid mys- tion. 
terious movements, his presence of mind, his prophetic 
anticipations ; to which must be added a humorous 
pleasure in playing with the fears and superstitions 
which these qualities engendered. 

The Emperor Constantine was entering Con- 
stantinople in state. A small figure darts across 
his path in the middle of the square, and stops his 
horse. The Emperor, thunderstruck, tries to pass 
on ; he cannot guess who the petitioner can be. It 
is Athanasius, who comes to insist on justice, when 
thought to be leagues away before the Council of 
Tyre. 

The Alexandrian Church is dismayed by the ac- 
cession of Julian. But Athanasius is unmoved ; he 
looks into the future ; he sees through the hollow- 
ness of the reaction. "It is but a little cloud," 
he says, " that will soon pass away." 

He is pursued by his enemies up the Nile. They 
meet a boat descending the stream. They hail it 
with the shout 1 so familiar to Egyptian travellers on 
the great river : "Where is Athanasius?" "Not 
" very far off," is the answer. The wind carries on 
the pursuers ; the current carries down the pursued. 
It was Athanasius, who, hearing of their approach, 
took advantage of a bend in the stream, to turn, 
and meet, and mislead, and escape them thus. 

He is passing through one of the squares of 
Alexandria. The heathen mob are standing around, 
a crow flies over his head. They, partly in jest, 

1 Soc. iii. 14. Sozomen makes this a divine intimation. 



288 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



partly in earnest, ask him to tell them what its 
croaking meant. He laughs in his sleeve, and 
answers: "Do you not hear? It says Cras, Cras, 
" which is in Latin 4 to-morrow/ which means that 
" to-morrow something untoward will befall you; 
44 for to-morrow your Pagan festival will be sup- 
" pressed by an Imperial decree." So it came to 
pass ; and few would care to ask how he really had 
gained the information. 1 

Of all these incidents the secret springs are to us 
sufficiently clear; his ubiquitous activity, his innu- 
merable sources of knowledge, his acute observation. 
But whilst to his friends they seemed to imply super- 
natural aid, to his enemies they suggested suspicions 
of the blackest witchcraft. When the murdered man 
with both his hands was produced alive, there were 
those who maintained that it was an optical illu- 
sion, caused by the glamour which Athanasius had 
cast over the Council. Even an enlightened Pagan 
was convinced that his knowledge of the future was 
derived from arts of divination and from the auguries 
of birds. 2 And this belief of the Pagans and heretics 
has curiously forced itself back into the Church. 
Whatever may be thought of the real origin of the 
legend of S. George the Martyr of Cappadocia, 
there can be no doubt that it has been incorporated 
with an Arian legend of the Arian George, Bishop 
of Alexandria, and murdered by the Alexandrian 
mob ; and that from this union has sprung the 
story in its present popular form. In this story, 
the contest of S. George is for the Empress Alex- 



i Sqz. iv. 10. 



2 Ammianus, xv. 7. 



Lect. VII. 



As a Theologian. 



289 



andra (in whom we can hardly fail to see the type 
of the Alexandrian Church), and his enemy is the 
magician Athanasius. 1 As time rolls on, and the 
legend grows in dimensions, George becomes the 
champion on his steed rescuing the Egyptian Prin- 
cess, and Athanasius the wizard sinks into the pro- 
strate dragon; and, in the popular representations 
of the story, still acted by Christmas mummers in 
the North of England, the transformation is into a 
lower form still ; and the only image which Cheshire 
peasants have seen of Athanasius is the quaint and 
questionable figure who appears under the name and 
in the guise of Beelzebub. It is the last expiring 
trace of the revenge of the Arians on their great 
adversary. 

III. From the active life of Athanasius we pass to The chief 

. . . theolo- 

his more speculative aspect, as the chief theologian of gian of the 
the age, in one sense of all ages. 

It may indeed be -doubted whether, in his own age, 
there was not one of still higher authority in the 
theological world, Hosius of Cordova. But his was 
one of those high reputations which have expired 
with the life of its holder ; whereas that of Athana- 
sius grew in the next generation to the height that 
secured for him finally the title of u great," which 
Hosius enjoyed only during his lifetime. "When- 
" ever you meet with a sentence of Athanasius," was 
the saying of the sixth century, " and have not paper 
" at hand, write it down upon your clothes." 

1 Acta SS., April 23, 120—123. The addition that the magi- 
cian was a friend of Magnentius identifies him beyond any doubt 
with Athanasius. See p. 281. 

VOL. I. U 



290 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



in the 1. He was one of the few theologians whose fame 

"West £tS 

wen as in was common both to East and West. What he was in 
the East I need not here further specify. But he 
left his footprint in the West also, to a degree far 
beyond what is the case with any other Eastern 
Father. He visited Rome and Treves. He learned 
Latin to converse with the Roman Bishop. He in- 
troduced to the Romans the strange hermits from 
Egypt. He brought monasticism into Germany. 
His very remains were gradually removed westward, 
from Alexandria 1 to Constantinople, to Venice, to 
France, to Spain. 

The close argumentative style of his writings 
was better calculated to win the attention of the 
Western theologians 2 than the more rhetorical and 
imaginative works of most of his countrymen; and 
of this harmony in thought, as well as of the deep 
impression left by his character in Western Christen- 
dom, the most remarkable proof is the ancient hymn, 
" Quicunque vult," which, throughout the middle 
ages and by our own Reformers, was believed to be 

Athanasian the Creed of S. Athanasius. The learned world is 

Creed. 

now fully aware that it is of French or Spanish origin. 
It not only contains words and phrases which to 
Athanasius were unknown, but it distinctly and from 
the first asserted the doctrine of the Double Pro- 
cession of the Spirit, which never occurs in the 
writings of Athanasius 3 ? and which, in all probability, 



1 Acta SS., May 2, i. 35. 2 See Lecture I. p. 27. 

3 The nearest approach to the Double Procession in the writings 
of Athanasius is in Ep. ad Serapion. i. 20. On the other hand, the 
Single Procession was maintained as against the doctrine of the 



Lect. VII. 



As a Theologian. 



291 



he would have repudiated with his Oriental brethren 
of later times. But its partial resemblance to his 
style, and the assumption of his name, have given it 
an immense support. 

2. He was the father of all Theology, in a more The 
precise sense than either as the oracle of the ancient Orthodoxy. 
Churches, or the writer of the chief theological Creed 
of the West. He was the founder of Orthodoxy. 1 
Before his time, and before the settlement of the 
Mcene Creed, in which he took so large a part, it 
might be said that the idea of an Orthodox doctrine, 
in the modern sense of the word, was almost un- 
known. Opinions were too fluctuating, too simple, 
too mixed, to admit of it. It is a word, even to this 
day, of doubtful repute. No one likes to be called 
" heretical," but neither is it a term of unmixed 
eulogy to be called "orthodox." It is a term which 
implies, to a certain extent, narrowness, fixedness, 
perhaps even hardness, of intellect, and deadness of 
feeling ; at times, rancorous animosity. In these 
respects its great founder cannot be said to be alto- 
gether free from the reproach cast on his followers 
in the same line. His elaborate expositions of doc- 

creation of the Spirit. (Neander, iv. 106 — 109.) See Lecture I. 
That a chief motive for cherishing the Athanasian Creed in 
the Latin Church was its assertion of the Double Procession, is 
evident from " the ancient testimonies " cited by Waterland 
(iv. 150), which mostly turn on this very point, a.d. 809 to 
1439. It has, indeed, in later times found its way into the 
Psalters both of Greece and Russia, though not of the remoter 
East. But it has never been recognised as an Eastern Creed, 
and the clause for which it was so highly valued in the West has 
been omitted. 

1 See Tillemont, viii. c. 117. 

u 2 



292 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



trine sufficiently exemplify the minuteness of argu- 
ment which perhaps may have been the cause of his 
being regarded as a special pleader or jurisconsult. 1 
His pole- His invectives against the Arians prove how far even 
mence. a heroic soul can be betrayed by party spirit and the 
violence of the times. Amongst his favourite epithets 
for them are : " Devils, Antichrists, maniacs, Jews, 
" polytheists, atheists, dogs, wolves, lions, hares, cha- 
" meleons, hydras, eels, cuttlefish, gnats, beetles, 
"leeches." 2 There may be cases where such lan- 
guage is justifiable, but, as a general rule, and with 
all respect for him who uses them, this style of 
controversy can be mentioned as a warning only, not 
as an example. 

Compared But the zeal of Athanasius for Orthodoxv, if it 

with Cyril. 

hurried him at times beyond the limits of Christian 
moderation in language, rarely, so far as we know, 
tempted him into unchristian violence in deeds. We 
can here speak with the more certainty from the con- 
trast which his life presents with that of another 
great prelate of the next generation. Just as, in the 
history of our own Church, Anselm's virtues can 
be appreciated only by comparison with Becket, or 
Ken's by comparison with Sancroft; so Athanasius, 
in the fourth century, may be fairly judged in the 
light of his own successor, Cyril of Alexandria, in 
the fifth. The bribery which is certainly traced to 
Cyril is at least doubtful in Athanasius. 3 There is 
good reason to acquit Athanasius of any share in the 

1 Snip. Sev. ii. 390 ; Gibbon, c. 22. 

2 See these epithets collected in a note to Athanasius's Historical 
Treatises (Newman's ed. ii. 34). 

3 The charge is only found in Philostorgius, iii. 12. 



Lect. VII. 



As a Theologian. 



293 



murder of George 1 ; but Cyril was suspected 2 , even by 
the Orthodox, of complicity in the murder of Hy- 
patia. Cyril was active in procuring the cruel banish- 
ment of the blameless Nestorius ; Athanasius was 
concerned in no persecutions except those in which 
he himself suffered. It was a maxim of Athanasius 
that " the duty of Orthodoxy is not to compel but to 
"persuade belief;" Cyril carried his measures by 
placing himself at the head of bands of ferocious 
ruffians 3 , and by canonising the assassin. Athanasius 
left no graver reproach on his memory than that of 
being a powerful magician ; Cyril's death suggested to 
one who has left his feelings on record the reflection 
that " at last the reproach of Israel was taken away ; 
" that he was gone to vex the inhabitants of the world 
" below with his endless dogmatism : let every one 
" throw a stone upon his grave, lest perchance he 
" should make even hell too hot to hold him 4 , and 
" return to earth." But the excellence of Athanasius, 
like that of every theologian, must be measured, not 
by his attack upon error, but by his defence of truth. 
Judged, indeed, by the hard and narrow standard of 
modern times, his teaching would be pronounced 
lamentably defective. But it is his rare merit, or his 
rare good fortune, that the centre of his theology was 
the doctrine of the Incarnation His earliest treatise 

1 Philost. vii. 2. The silence of Julian acquits him. 

2 The direct charge of Damascius is not contradicted by So- 
crates, vii. 15, See Valesius ad h. 1. 

3 Soc. vii. 13, 14. 

4 Theod. Ep. 180. The genuineness of the Epistle and its 
intention have been disputed, but mainly on the supposed im- 
probability that Theodoret should so have designated Cyril. 

u 3 



294 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



fence of the * s 011 ^ na ^ s P e °i a l subject, before it had become em- 
tion ai na " ^ r °il e( i m ^he Arian controversy ; and it contains his 
calm statement of the doctrine, and of its practical 
effects on the world, unembittered by the polemics of 
his middle life. And though the forms, both of the 
errors which he opposed and of the truths which he 
maintained, have varied in later times, it may be 
worth while briefly to point out how his teaching 
reaches far beyond his own time, and extends into 
those manifold applications which form one of the 
best tests of truth. 

a) I have before spoken of the polytheistic ten- 
dencies of which Arianism was the partial develop- 
ment. The Unity of the Father and the Son, which 
Athanasius maintained against these tendencies, is 
still needed as the basis of sound representations of 
the Divine acts. It is a standing witness, that in 
Scripture and theology, no less than in philosophy 
and conscience, there is a marked repugnance to the 
forced oppositions between the justice of the Father 
and the mercy of the Son, which run through so 
many modern systems of the Redemption. Amongst 
the various figures which Athanasius uses to express 
his view, one is that of " Satisfaction." But this is 
introduced incidentally and in entire subordination to 
the primary truth, that the Redemption flowed from 
the Indivisible Love of the Father and the Son alike, 
and that its object was the restoration of man to 
union with God. 

b) It was a favourite position of Arius that the 
finite mind of man could never comprehend the 



1 Philost. x. 4. 



Lect. VII. 



As a Theologian* 



Infinity of God. Snch notions have been sometimes 
pnshed to a still further development in the form of 
representing the Divine morality as altogether dif- 
ferent from the human. But it is a profound remark 
of a gifted member of the Eastern Church, that one 
grand result of the Nicene decision was the reasser- 
tion of the moral nature, the moral perfection, of the 
Divinity. 1 In the Athanasian declaration that only 
through the image of perfect humanity can perfect 
Divinity be made known to us, is the true antidote 
to any such erroneous or sceptical representations of 
the Divine character. 

c) The Athanasian doctrine of the Divine rela- 
tions possesses an element of permanence shared 
by no other theories of that time. 2 It recognises 
only two intelligences in the world, God and man. 
These are two simple ideas which will last as long as 
the human race itself. But the Arian theories intro- 
duce into the subject the hypothesis of beings inter- 
vening between the Divine and human, such as be- 
long to the transitory and dubious province which 
lies between Eeligion and Mythology. If the con- 
troversy had ended by fixing in the centre of the 
Christian Creed a being like the angels or iEons of the 
early heretics, or the superhuman saints of the Latin 
Church, the departure from the simplicity and so- 
briety of Christian faith would have been far wider 
than can be the case in any true statement of the 
doctrine of Athanasius. 

d) The importance ascribed by Athanasius to the 

1 Quelques Mots (1857), 32, 69, 79. 

2 I am indebted for this remark to the Kev. J. B. Mozley. 



296 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



doctrine of the Incarnation, almost requires " the in- 
" communicable preeminence" 1 which the most philo- 
sophical theologians, as well as the simplest believers, 
have always assigned to the Four Gospels above all 
other portions of the sacred volume. This preemi- 
nence has often been disputed by the sectarian or the 
half-informed polemics of modern times. But it is 
not less necessary to Athanasian theology, than it is 
to a right adjustment of the proportions of Scripture. 
His discri- 3. There was a still "more excellent way " of Or- 
mma ion thodoxy in which Athanasius was conspicuous. He 
had firmly grasped the idea that it was a Christian duty 
to reconcile imaginary differences, and distinguish the 
essential and unessential. " Whilst," says Gregory 
Nazianzen, " he was a fire which burns away as a forest 
" the noxious vegetation, and a sword which cuts 
" up evil by the roots, so he was a husbandman's 
" winnowing fan to separate the light chaff from the 
" solid grain of the wheat. Whilst he went along 
" with the sword of the conqueror, he was also the 
" breath of the quickening spirit." 2 

Three signal instances of his discriminating judg- 
ment are recorded : 
inthequar- a) He healed the iealousies of the two monastic 

rels with 7 

the monks orders of the monks (or Coenobites) and the hermits 
mits. which threatened to break up the Eastern Church, 
as the quarrels of the Franciscans and Dominicans 
in later times disturbed the tranquillity of the West- 
ern Church ; the one representing the more purely 



1 Remains of Alexander Knox, ii. 335 ; an admirable passage, 
quoted in Dr. Ogilvie's Bampt.on Lectures, p. 230. 

2 Orat. 21, c. 7. 



Lett. VII. As a Theologian. 297 

devotional, the other the more intellectual, form of 
religion. He lived equally with both ; sometimes 
in the cell of the purely contemplative anchorite, 
sometimes in the community of the more social 
convent. Here, as elsewhere, (I again quote the 
strong language of Gregory,) u he showed himself the 
" reconciler and mediator of the age, imitating Him 
" who by His own blood set at peace those who had 
" parted asunder ; showing (with the hermits) that 
" religion was able to become philosophical, and (with 
" the monks) that philosophy stood in need of the 
u guidance of religion." 1 

b) Both in discipline and in doctrine he gave in clerical 
proof that he was willing to sacrifice the letter to dlscipline ' 
the spirit. A solemn decree of the Nicene Council, 

one of the few still observed in the West, required the 
presence of three Bishops for Episcopal consecration, 
and the usage of the Egyptian Church required that 
all such appointments should take place at Alexandria. 
When a young active layman had been consecrated 
by a single Bishop, and without consulting the see of 
Alexandria, Athanasius not only acquiesced in the 
appointment, though " against all the rules received 
" from antiquity," but " bent to the necessities of the 
u time," and promoted him to the metropolitan see of 
the province. 2 

c) In doctrine he gave a yet more startling proof in the use 

... .. tpi -i« an ^ Misuse 

01 tins same disposition, li there was any one object oftheHo- 
which he might seem to have at heart more than any moousion ' 
other, it was the word Homoousion 3 , which he had 



1 Orat. 21, c. 19. 2 See Synesius, Ep. 67. 3 See Lecture IV. 



298 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



been the means of introducing into the Council of 
Nicgea. The truth which he believed to be expressed 
by the word he did indeed defend through life and 
death. But the word itself he was willing to 
waive, when he found that it was misunderstood. 1 
We may think, with Bishop Kaye, that he might 
have come earlier to this conclusion. But that he 
should have come to it at all, shows that he possessed 
a rare qualification of a great theologian. It is a 
striking and edifying instance of the power of appre- 
ciating identity of doctrine under different, or even 
opposite, forms of speech, 
in the d) Yet one more important task of this kind 

Aiexan-° f was reserved for the close of his life ; namely, to 
reconcile the divisions of the East and West, which 
threatened to break out, as they did afterwards, into 
open rupture on these verbal questions. The Council 
of the Apostles at Jerusalem is the only one of which 
the direct object was not an enforcement of uni- 
formity, but a toleration of diversity. That which, 
in later times, approached most nearly to it in this 
respect was the Council held at Alexandria, under 
the presidency of Athanasius, in the year 362. It 
consisted of the Bishops returning home from banish- 
ment, after the long struggle with the Arians, and 
was intended to reunite by an act of amnesty the 
broken fragments of the Church. Those who had 
lapsed into Arianism were now on submission to be 
received again. 2 Lucifer of Cagliari, the fierce Sar- 



dria, 
a.d. 362. 



1 Ath.de Syn.41. 

2 Basil had to defend himself for having done so. Athanasius's 



Lect. VII. 



As a Theologian. 



dinian, alone protested, and the long discord was 
healed. 

Amongst other questions brought before it was the Contro- 
dispute which had arisen in the Council of Nicasa "Person" 
on the meaning of the word hypostasis, and which stance." Ub 
had now reached its height. The Latins still used it 
in the sense in which it was used in the Nicene Creed, 
as identical with ousia, which they translated by sub- 
stantia, the etymological equivalent of hypostasis. 
But the Greeks had begun to use it in the sense of 
prosopon (" person "), and taunted the ignorant Latins 
with Sabellianism, whilst the Latins retorted with 
the charge of Arianism. Others, in the hope of sti- 
fling the quarrel, proscribed the use of both words. 1 
" The controversy," says Gregory, " had reached to 
" such a pitch that the two quarters of the world 
" were on the point of being torn asunder by a 
" difference of syllables. When Athanasius of blessed 
" memory saw and heard this, he, like a true man of 
" God, like a grand steward of souls, determined 
" that this absurd and irrational division of the Divine 
" Word was not to be endured; and the remedy, the 
" charm, which he had in his own character and mind, 
" he brought to bear on the disease. How did he 
" effect this? He called both sides together. He 
" addressed them gently and kindly. He explained 
" in exact terms the sense of what was intended, and 
u when he found that they agreed, and had no differ- 
" ence in what they meant, he granted freely to each 

letters, saying that he was to receive them without hesitation, 
were his warrant. Ep. 204, § 6 (306). 
1 Soc. iii. 7. 



3oo 



Athanasius. Lect. VII. 



" the use of their words and names; whilst he bound 
" them together by the things and facts which the 
" words represented. This was more profitable than 
" all the long labours and discourses, in which per- 
" haps there may have been an element of ambition 
" and vanity. This is more honourable than all the 
" sleepless nights and hard couches, of which the 
" advantage ends with the endurance. This was 
" worth all his famous wanderings and exiles ; for 
" this was the object for which he bore those suffer- 
" ings, and to which he devoted himself after those 
" sufferings were over." 

The Council of Alexandria was the last public 
occasion on which Athanasius appeared. It is pleas- 
ing to reflect that, as in the old age of Baxter, the 
last public acts of Athanasius' s life were of wisdom, 
discernment, and charity. 
Things, In Goethe's Faust, the counsel given by Mephisto- 

not words. _ . 7 . . , 1 

pheles is to pay no attention to tilings in theology, 
but to dwell solely on words. This is the Devil's 
advice to theological students; and, alas! by too 
many, in every age of the world, most faithfully has 
it been followed. The advice and the example of 
Athanasius are exactly the contrary. Words no 
doubt are of high importance in theology. Both 
in ecclesiastical history and in the interpretation of 
Scripture, the study of their origin and meaning is 
most fruitful. Athanasius himself introduced into 
our confessions one of the most famous of them. 
But this gives the greater force to his warning, when 
he bids the contending parties ascertain first of all 
what is the meaning of the terms they use, and then, 



Lect. VII. 



His Relations with S. Basil. 



301 



if the meaning on both sides is the same, to fix their 
attention not on the words respecting which they 
differ, bnt on the things respecting which they are 
agreed. 

One farther final glimpse we catch of Athanasius. Relations 
It is the sight, seldom witnessed, of a cordial saluta- 1^. 37a 1 
tion and farewell between the departing and the 
coming generation. This is what we see in the 
correspondence of the aged Athanasius and the active 
Basil, just entering on the charge of his new diocese 
in Asia Minor. The younger Prelate, suspected of 
heresy, eagerly appeals to the old oracle of Orthodoxy, 
and from him receives the welcome support which 
elsewhere he had sought in vain. " His accusers 
" torment themselves without reason," replied Atha- 
nasius. " He has but condescended to the infirmities 
" of the weak. Think yourselves happy to have re- 
" ceived as your pastor a man so full of wisdom and of 
" truth." Basil longed to see the great reconciler 
face to face. 1 This was not to be. But, amidst the 
distracting perplexities of the time, he consoled him- 
self by writing to him, and by delineating the vene- 
rable figure of the representative of the former age. 
"His head," so Basil 2 describes him, "is now white 
" with years. . . He has lived from the happy days 
" before the Nicene Council, when the Church was at 
" peace, into these mournful days of boundless con- 
" troversy. . . He is the Samuel of the Church, the 
" revered mediator between the old generation and the 
" new. He is the skilful physician for the manifold 



1 Basil, Ep. 69, § 2 (52). 



2 Ep. 68, § 1 (48). 



302 



Athanasius. 



Lect. VII. 



" diseases with which the Church is labouring 1 . . 
" He stands," — such is the expressive image drawn 
no doubt from the lighthouse (Pharos) of Athanasius's 
own city, — " he stands on his lofty watchtower of 
" speculation, seeing with his ubiquitous glance what 
" is passing throughout the world. He overlooks 
" the wide stormy ocean, where there is a vast 
" fleet at sea, tossed and foundering in the waters, 
" partly by the external violence of the sea, still more 
" by the mismanagement and misunderstanding of 
44 the crews of the several ships, running each other 
" down and thrusting each other aside. . . . With this 
" image," says S. Basil, " I will conclude what I have 
" to say. It is all that the wisdom of Athanasius will 
"require to be said; it is all that the difficulties of 
" the time will permit me to say." 

With this image too let me conclude. Our view 
over the sea of ecclesiastical history, past and present 
and future, is as it was then. The tempest still rages ; 
the ships which went out of the harbour have never 
returned. They are still tossing to and fro, and 
tossing against one another in the waves of con- 
troversy. 

It may have been an advantage to have gazed for a 
moment over this scene through the eyes and with 
the experiences of Athanasius the Great. 

1 Ep. 82. 



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Mahometanism. Lect. VJII. 



LECTUEE VIII. 

MAHOMET A.NISM IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



There are few historical subjects on which the changes of 
our degrees of knowledge are so readily appreciable as in the 
.case of the religion of Mahomet. 1 In the time of the Cru- 
saders, Mahometans were vulgarly regarded as Pagan idol- 
aters: it is now known that they abhor idolatry even more 
than we do. The very name of "Mahomet" (" Mawmet" 
or i( Mummet") was then taken for a graven image : it is 
now known that he absolutely forbade the use of any material 
representation. It was then believed that the name of 
Christ was heid accursed in the eyes of Mussulmans : it is 
now known that He is held to be one of the greatest, almost 
the greatest, of their prophets. It was believed till the last 
century that Mahomet rested his claims on false miracles : 
it is now known, and indeed urged as an argument against 
him, that he laid claim to no miracles at all. Voltaire, no 

1 Of the authorities, the following may be selected 

On the Life of Mahomet : 

1. "The Koran." (Either Sale's translation into English or Ka- 

simirsky's translation into French, or Lane's Selections.) 

2. Caussin de Percival's " Histoire des Arabes." (1848.) 

3. Weil's "Mohamed der Prophet." (1843.) 

4. Sprenger's " Life of Mohammed." (1851.) 

5. Muir's "Life of Mahomet." (1858.) 
On Mahometan Customs : 

1. Burckhardt's " Notes on the Bedouins." (1831.) 

2. Lane's " Modern Egyptians." (1836: singularly accurate.) 

3. Burton's " Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medineh." (1856.) 



Lect. VIII. 



Authorities. 



less than Prideaux and Gagnier, believed him to be a wicked 
impostor : it is now known that, at least for a large part 
"of his life, he was a sincere reformer and enthusiast. The 
gross blunders formerly made in his Western biographies, 
from an insufficient knowledge of Arabic ! , are now rectified ; 
and yet further, the reaction which took place in his favour 
about fifty years since has been checked by increased in- 
formation from original sources. The story of his epileptic 
fits, a few years ago much discredited, seems now to be in- 
con trovertibly reestablished ; and we have a firmer ground 
than before for believing that a decided change came over 
the simplicity of his character after the establishment of his 
kingdom at Medina. 

But there still remain two works unfinished, or not yet 
begun, before the completion of which any thorough repre- 
sentation of the rise of Mahometanism must be impossible 
to a Western student. 

1. We need an edition and translation of the Koran which 
shall give two points hitherto almost un attempted, yet both 
almost indispensable to its right appreciation. First, the 
chronological arrangement of its chapters. 2 Secondly, a 
version which shall represent, not merely its matter, but the 
form of its rhymed diction. 3 

1 A signal instance is the version of the famous speech of 
Ali as given by Gibbon and others, from Gagnier's translation of 
Abu-l-Fida's Life of Mohamed : — " O Prophet, I will be thy 
vizier. I will beat out the teeth, pull out the eyes, rip up the 
bellies, and break the legs of all who oppose you." 

This speech, so unlike the gentle character of Ali, is now 
known to have run thus: — " O Prophet, I will be thy vizier ; 
though I am the youngest of them in years, and the weakest of 
them in eyes, and the biggest of them in belly [the invariable 
characteristic of an Arab child], and the most slender of them 
in legs, I, O Prophet of God, will be thy vizier over them." — 
Lane's Selections from the Koran, p. 62. 

2 An approximation to this may be found in Weil's Moham- 
med, p. 364, and thence in Dr. Maebride's Mahometanism, 
p. 108. The clue furnished even thus far is invaluable as a guide 
through the chaos in which the book at present lies. 

3 A few instances are given in Sprenger, p. 121, 122. 

VOL. I. X 



306 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



2. We still need a biography of the Prophet. Any one 
who will study the fragment of Dr. Sprenger's " Life of 
Mohammed/' published at Allahabad in 185 1, will per- 
ceive its superiority to any previous account. This frag- 
ment, it is understood, will be merged in a larger work 
containing the whole biography, and founded on a wider 
collection of traditions than has ever been brought before 
the eyes of any single critic. Till this work appears, any 
detailed examination of the origin of Mahometanism would 
be as premature, as (possibly) afterwards it will be super- 
fluous. 

I trust, however, that the following brief remarks on the 
general connection of this subject with the history of the 
Church may be of service to the ecclesiastical student, and will 
justify the place which is assigned to it in these Lectures. 



Mahome*- I. As the Eastern Church ought always to be re- 
garded as the background of the Western Church, so 
Mahometanism, at least for the first eight centuries 
its con- of its existence, is the background of both. The 
with sword of the Saracen, the Turk, and the Tartar 
Emope, cons tantly hung over the eastern confines of Chris- 
tendom; and down to the final repulse beneath the 
walls of Yienna, by John Sobieski and the Duke 
of Lorraine, checked the policy and restrained the 
passions of the Churches and nations of Europe. 
The Crusades, the most important event of the 
middle ages, owe their origin entirely to the con- 
with Spain, flict with Islam. The Spanish Church and monarchy 
rose out of a crusade of its own. Of that crusade the 
traces have been left, not only in the Oriental manners 
and architecture of the Spanish nation, but in the 
fierce bigotry of the Spanish Church ; in the Inquisi- 



Lect. VIII. Connection with Church History. 307 



tion ; in the union of chivalry, devotion, and fana- 
ticism which marks the Spanish institution of the 
Society of Jesuits. The "tabula rasa" which the with Hun- 
ancient kingdom of Hungary presents, stripped of saiy ' 
all its historical and ecclesiastical monuments, is the 
lasting scar which the Turkish invasion and long 
occupation of that country have left on the face of 
Europe. The agitations of the Eeformation were with the 
constantly arrested by the terror of the Sultan of ^on° ima " 
Constantinople. Even our Prayer-book has one 
mark of the importance that this terror assumed at 
that moment, when, in the collect for Good Friday, 
the name of u Turk " was added to those of " Jews, 
64 Heretics, and Infidels," for whose conversion in ear- 
lier days prayers had been offered up. Nor can it with the 
be forgotten that it is the only higher religion which church, 
has hitherto made progress in the vast continent of 
Africa. Whatever may be the future fortunes of 
African Christianity, there can be no doubt that they 
will long be affected by its relations with the most 
fanatical and the most proselytising portion of the 
Mussulman world in its negro converts. 

II. But with the Eastern Church Mahometanism 
has a more direct connection. Not only have the 
outward fortunes of the Greek, Asiatic, and Russian 1 
Churches been affected by their unceasing conflict 
with this their chief enemy, but it and they have 
a large part of their history and their condition in 
common. Springing out of the same Oriental soil 
and climate, if not out of the bosom of the Orienta 



See Lecture IX. 



3 o8 



Mahometan! sm, Lect. VIII. 



with the Church itself, in part under its influence, in part by 
of the way of reaction against it, Mahometanism must be 
Church, regarded as an eccentric heretical form of Eastern 
Christianity. This, in fact, was the ancient mode of 
regarding Mahomet. He was considered, not in the 
light of the founder of a new religion, but rather as 
one of the chief heresiarchs of the Church. Amongst 
them he is placed by Dante in the " Inferno." 
with the Yet more than this, its progress, if not its rise, 
the East- can be traced directly to those theological dissensions 
ern Church, ^ich f orm ^} ie maui p ar t 0 f the ecclesiastical history 

of the East. We are told by Dean Prideaux, that 
he originally undertook the " Life of Mahomet," as 
part of a " History of the Ruin of the Eastern Church," 
to which he was led by his sad reflection on the con- 
troversies of his own time in England 1 ; and the 
remarks, deeply instructive and pathetic now as then, 
with which he opens his design, well express the 
connection between the two events : — 

" Notwithstanding those earnest expectations and strong 
hopes, which we entertained of having our divisions healed, 
and all those breaches which they have caused in the Church 
again made up ; finding those of the separation still to retain 
the same spirit on the one side, and some others to be so 
violently bent on the other, against everything that might 
tend to mollify and allay it, as to frustrate all those excellent 
designs which have been laid in order thereto ; I thought I 
could not better let those men see what mischief they both do 
hereby to the common interest of Christianity, than by laying 
before them the grievous ruin and desolation, which from 

1 Pref. to Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. vi — xvi. He gave up 
the plan from a fear of seeming to underrate the importance of 
the Trinitarian controversy, which, after he had begun his work, 
began to be agitated in England, Ibid. p. xvii. xviii. 



Lect. VIII. Connection with Eastern Church. 309 



the like cause happened to the Churches of the East, once 
the most flourishing of the whole earth. For they, having 
drawn the abstrusest niceties into controversy which were 
of little or no moment to that which is the chief end of our 
Holy Christian religion, and divided and subdivided about 
them into endless schisms and contentions, did thereby so 
destroy that peace, love, and charity from among them, 
which the Gospel was given to promote, and instead thereof 
continually provoked each other to that malice, rancour, and 
every evil work, that they lost the whole substance of their 
religion, while they thus eagerly contended for their own 
imaginations concerning it, and in a manner drove Christi- 
anity quite out of the world by those very controversies in 
which they disputed with each other about it. So that at 
length having wearied the patience and long-suffering of 
God, in thus turning this holy religion into a firebrand of 
hell .for contention, strife, and violence among them, which 
was given them out of his infinite mercy to the quite con- 
trary end, for the salvation of their souls, by living holily, 
righteously, and justly in this present world, he raised up 
the Saracens to be the instruments of his wrath to punish 
them for it ; who taking advantage of the weakness of power, 
and the distractions of councils, which these divisions had 
caused among them, soon over-run with a terrible devasta- 
tion all the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire. 

" And when the matter came to this trial, some of those 
who were the hottest contenders about Christianity became 
the first apostates from it ; and they, who would not afore 
part with a nicety, an abstruse notion, or an unreasonable 
scruple, for the peace of the Church, were soon brought by 
the sword at their throats, to give up the whole in com- 
pliance to the pleasure of a barbarous and savage conqueror. 

iC And no wonder that such, who had afore wrangled away 
the substance of their religion in contention and strife against 
each other, and eat out the very heart of it by that malice 
and rancour which they showed in their controversy about 
it, became easily content when under this force to part with 
the name also. 

66 A sad memento to us; for of all Christian Churches now 
remaining in the world, which is there that hath more 

x 3 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



Connection 
between 
the Maho- 
metan and 
Christian 
teaching. 



Zeyd. 



Bahari. 



reason than we at this present, to learn instruction from this 
example, and take warning therefrom ? " 

III. There were also direct points of contact be- 
tween the religion of Mahomet and the Eastern 
Church which may be briefly noticed. 

1. The rise of his power was considerably aided 
by a circle in Mecca, amongst whom was the favourite 
slave Zeyd, who were predisposed to accept a purer 
faith than the Paganism of Arabia. This, predis- 
position they undoubtedly derived from intercourse 
with Eastern Christians, either from Abyssinia or 
Syria. 1 

2. Through the conflicting stories and legends of 
Mahomet's early life emerges one dark figure, of 
whom the little that is said only serves to stimulate 
our curiosity. There are not a few mysterious cha- 
racters of history, who have done more than the 
world will ever know or acknowledge, more than 
they themselves expected or desired. Bahari, Bahyra, 
Sergius, George, whatever be the name of the Syrian 
or Nestorian monk of Bostra, is one of these. It 
seems impossible to refuse all credence to the manifold 
traditions which represent him as conversing with 
Mahomet on his first journey with the camel- drivers, 
as welcoming the youthful Prophet with a presage of 
his coming greatness, and entering into the innermost 
circle of Mahomet's companions as the first and 
favourite friend. 2 In that case, we can hardly doubt 



1 Sprenger, 38, 41 ; Muir, ii. 7, 50; Koran, c. 85. 

2 See Prideaux, 41 — 48 ; Muir, i. 35. As an instance of the 
permanence of Oriental traditions respecting Bahari, I may men- 
tion that I heard from the lips of an Egyptian Arab the identical 



Lect. VIII. Connection with Eastern Church. 311 



that the Eastern Church, through this wandering 
heretical son, exercised a powerful control over the 
rising fortunes of Islam. 

3. The local legends of the Syrian or Arabian 
Christians, whether as communicated by Bahari or 
by others, form the groundwork of Mahomet's know- 
ledge of Christianity, or at least of those parts of 
Christianity which he incorporated with his own reli- 
gion. It is in this manner that one branch of eccle- 
siastical or sacred literature, little studied and with 
but slight influence in Christendom itself, has acquired 
an importance not sufficiently appreciated. The 
genuine canonical Gospels were almost unknown to 
Mahomet. 1 But the apocryphal Gospels^ which en- Th e apo- 
shrine so many of the traditions of Palestine and Gospels. 
Egypt respecting the localities of the sacred story, 
and which no doubt circulated widely in the lower 
classes both of the East and West, were quite familiar 
to him. From these, with the total ignorance of 
chronology which besets an Oriental mind, he com- 
piled his account of " the Lord Jesus." Hence came his 
description of the Holy Family ; the family of Amran, 
as he calls it, from a confused identification of Mary 
with Miriam the sister of Moses. Hence came the 

story respecting Bahari's death which was told to Maundeville in 
the 14th century (c. xii.), and to Schwarz, the collector of Jewish 
traditions, in this century (p. 346). 

1 The two exceptions are : 1. The assumption to himself of the 
name of the Paracletus ; which, although known to him only through 
its distorted form of Paraclytus, the "illustrious," is, as far as we 
know, only found in the canonical writings of S. John. 2. The 
account of the birth of John the Baptist, which seems to be taken 
from S. Luke. (Muir, ii. 313, 278.) 

x 4 



3 I2 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



only conception which he was able to form of the 
character and miracles of Christ; a conception how 
inferior to the true one those only can tell who have 
compared the grotesque puerility of the apocryphal, 
with the grand sublimity of the canonical, narrative. 1 
The same excuse that has been made for much of the 
belief of the West, must also be made for the mis- 
belief of the East. As we forgive the sceptics of the 
last century for a hatred to Christianity which they 
only knew as represented by the corrupt monarchy 
and hierarchy of France, so may we still more forgive 
Mahomet for the inferior place which he assigned 
amongst the Prophets to Him whom he knew not as 
the Christ of the Four Evangelists, but as the Christ of 
the Gospel of the Infancy or of Nicodemus. 

The im- 4. Some few of his doctrines and legends are re- 

Concep- markable, not only as having been derived by him 
from Christian sources, but as having been received 
back from him into Christendom. One is the doctrine 
of the Immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. 
The assertion of her entire exemption from all stain of 
sin first appears, so far as is known, in a chapter 

The Seven in the Koran. 2 Another is the story of the Seven 
Sleepers at Ephesus. It is, as Gibbon observes 3 , the 
most widely diffused, as it is the most suggestive, of all 
ecclesiastical legends, and a large part of its diffusion 
it owes to its adoption in the Koran. A third is the 

El Khudr. belief in the mysterious personage " El Khudr," 
the " Green one;" the counterpart, from a better side, 
of the legend of the Wandering Jew, but by Mussul- 



1 See Muir, ii. 288. 



2 Koran, iii. 31,37. 



3 c.33. 



Lect.VIII. Compared with Sacred History. 313 



mans identified partly with the Christian S. George, 
partly with the Hebrew Elijah ; the strange visitant of 
immortal youth, who appears to set right the wrong, 
and solve the obscure. 1 The story of El Khudr in 
the Koran is the earliest origin of the moral apologue 
well known to English readers through Parnell's 
poem of the Hermit and the Angel. 

IV. Through the peculiar circumstances of its Compari- 
appearance in Arabia, Mahometanism furnishes a theBibii- 
storehouse of illustration to Christian ecclesiastical tory hlS 
history, such as can be found in none of the heathen 
religions of the world. Its Eastern origin gives to 
all its outward forms and expressions a likeness to 
the corresponding terms and incidents of the Old 
and New Testaments, which renders it invaluable as 
an aid to the Biblical commentator and historian. 
Its rise and growth present parallels and contrasts 
to the propagation of the Christian religion, and to 
the different forms of the Christian Church, which 
can be found nowhere else. The comparison of its 
first beginnings with those of Christianity, if it could 
be done without exaggeration on either side, would 
supply by its resemblances an admirable commen- 
tary on the historical details, and by its contrast 
an admirable evidence to the Divine spirit, of the 
Gospel narrative. The circle of devoted disciples 
gathered round their Master ; the jealousy and sus- 
picion of the Arabian hierarchy ; "the house of 
Arcam" where their earliest meetings were held, as 
in " the house " and " the upper room " of the Gos- 



1 Jelaladdin, 128, 406, 537. 



3H 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



pels and the Acts; the constant recruitment of the 
new society from the humblest classes, especially 
from slaves 1 ; the peculiarities of the leading followers, 
especially the energy and zeal of the last and most 
reluctant convert, Omar the persecutor changed into 
Omar the devoted preacher and caliph 2 , are parallels 
which help us at every turn to understand the like 
passages in the story of the Gospels and the Acts ; 
whilst the immeasurable contrast between the Cha- 
racter which forms the centre of the one group, and 
that which forms the centre of the other, reveals to 
us the incommensurable difference between the faith 
of Christianity and the faith of Islam. 
Compari- Or again, we can trace with a clearness which 

son with . 

eccie- throws a strong light on either side, the parallel be- 

siastical to & i I 

history. tween the confessedly natural part of the subsequent 
growth of the two ecclesiastical systems. In each case 
there is a marked descent from the vigour and purity 
of the first followers to the weakness and discord of 
those who succeed. In each case the Church is 
broken up into divisions large and small, and is de- 
veloped into systems of which its first framers knew 
nothing. Even the wide rent between Eastern and 
Western, and yet more between Catholic and Pro- 
testant, Christendom, finds its instructive likeness 
in the rent between the Sonnees and Shiahs of the 
Mussulman world. The exaltation of S. Peter or of 
the Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church, 
beyond the position which they occupied in the earliest 



1 Sprenger, 159. 

2 For the comparison of Omar to S. Paul, see Muir, ii. 168. 



Lect. VIII. The Koran. 



315 



ages, is met by the corresponding elevation of Ali 
amongst the Shiahs. The Pope was hardly more 
hateful in the eyes of Luther and Calvin, or the 
Greek Church in the eyes of the Pope, than Abubekr, 
Omar, and Othman have been in eyes of the Persian 
and Indian Mahometans, who anathematise them as 
impostors and usurpers. 

Y. The Koran has special claims on our attention The Koran 
as the sacred book of the world which can best be SSSftiJe* 
compared with our own 1 , and which, by that compa- 
rison, furnishes not merely an evidence to the Divine 
supremacy of the Bible, but also brings into the 
strongest relief the true character of the contents and 
authority of the Scriptures, in contradistinction to 
the modern theories which have sometimes been 
formed concerning them. 

1. In its outward form there are two resemblances Their re- 
to different portions of the Bible. First, its chap- biances. 
ters are stamped by a peculiarly fragmentary and 
occasional character, written as they are at different Theocca- 
periods of Mahomet's life, suggested by special inci- racter of 
dents, modified by the successive exigencies of the 
time, revealing the struggles of his own inward feel- 
ings, and indicating the gradual progress of his career. 
These features of the book, which form its chief 
charm and its chief difficulty, also furnish the best 
proof of its genuineness. Something of the same and of the 
charm, the same difficulty, and the same evidence Epistles, 
is afforded by the Pauline Epistles. The force of 



1 M. St. Hilaire (Journal des Savants, Aug. 1860, p. 460) adds the 
Veda. But the relations of the Yeda to the Bible are so much 
more distant, as to make the comparison less easy. 



316 



Mahometanism. 



Lect. VIII. 



Paley's argument in the " Horae Paulinas " may be 
tested by its application to the Koran. The difficulty 
which we find in the Koran from the contravention 
of the chronological order in the chapters, of which 
the earliest in time are the latest in position, and some 
of the latest in time amongst the earliest in position, 
is parallel to the confusion introduced into the study 
of S. Paul's Epistles by the disregard of their natural 
order, which has placed the Epistles to the Thessa- 
lonians nearly at the end, and the Epistle to the 
Romans at the beginning, of the series. Happily, in 
the case of the Pauline Epistles, the disarrangement 
has not yet become irretrievably stereotyped, as in 
the Koran, and we are therefore still able to reap 
the benefit of their true historical sequence without 
difficulty. 

The legal The other resemblance is of a totally different 

ch 0,1* £LC 1 6 1* 

of the kind, and to a totally different part of the Scriptures. 
S^hePen- The position which the Koran has assumed in the 
tateuch. Mahometan world corresponds more nearly than that 
of any other book or system to the Law or Pentateuch 
in the Jewish Church. It contains the civil as well 
as the moral and religious code of the nations which 
it governs. Its precepts are regarded as binding in 
the same literal sense as was the case with the Mo- 
saic ordinances. It has given birth to an order or pro- 
fession of men exactly similar to the Jewish Scribes. 
The clergy, if we may so call them, of the Mahometan 
Church are also its lawyers. The chief ecclesiastical 
functionary of Constantinople is also the chief legal 
officer. His duty is to expound the text of the 
Koran, and furnish such interpretations of it as will fa- 



Lect. VIII. 



The Koran. 



317 



cilitate its application to the changes of modern times. 
The difficulty which arose in the Jewish Church, 
from the expansion and diffusion of the J ewish system 
beyond the pale of Palestine and of the chosen nation, 
has also arisen, though not to the same degree, in 
Islam. In Judaism the difficulty was solved by the 
submergence of the narrower dispensation of the 
Law in the freedom of the Gospel. In Mahometan 
countries it is solved by forced interpretations, bend- 
ing the sacred text to circumstances which it never 
contemplated, and which it cannot truly cover. 

2. But the contrasts are far greater than the Their con- 

trusts 

resemblances. I do not speak of the acknowledged 
superiority of the Christian doctrine, morals, or 
philosophy. For this let a single instance suffice. 
What is there in the Koran that can be named for a 
moment, as a proof of inspiration, in comparison with 
S. Paul's description of Charity ? I confine myself to 
the contrast of form between the two books. The 
Koran shows us what the Bible would be if narrowed 
down to our puny measurements, and what in its 
own divine and universal excellence it actually is. 
In the comparison between the two we clearly see 
how the Koran is marked by those attributes which 
we sometimes falsely ascribe to the Bible ; how the 
peculiarities which we are sometimes afraid of ac- 
knowledging in the Bible are exactly those excel- 
lencies which most clearly distinguish it from the 
Koran. 

a) The Koran is uniform in style and mode of Uniformity 
expression. It is true, as I have just remarked, that Koran, 
when chronologically arranged it exhibits to us, 



3i8 



Mahometanism. Lect. vm. 



though in an indistinct form, the phases through 
which the mind of that one person passed. It is, as 
Mahomet's followers called it, "his character." It is, 
in this respect, as the Old Testament might be if it 
were composed of the writings of the single prophet 
Isaiah or Jeremiah ; or the New Testament, if it were 
composed of the writings of the single Apostle S. 
Paul. It is what the Bible as a whole would be, if 
from its pages were excluded all individual persona- 
lities of its various writers, all differences of time 
Variety of and place and character. But the peculiarity both 

the Bible. r 

of the Hebrew and of the Christian Scriptures is, that 
they are not confined to one place or time or person. 
They abound in incidents so varied, as to give to 
the whole book that searching application to every 
condition and character of life which has been a 
principal source of its endless edification. The 
differences between the several prophets and his- 
torians of the Old Testament, between the several 
evangelists and apostles of the New Testament, are 
full of meaning. On the face of each book we see 
what each book was intended to be and to teach. In 
each portion of each book we see what is prose, and 
what is poetry ; what is allegory, or parable, or drama, 
or vision, or prophecy ; what is chronicle, or precept, 
or narrative. The Bible is in this way, not only its 
own interpreter, but its own guide. The styles of 
Scripture are so many heaven-planted sign-posts to 
set our feet in the right direction. There is no 
other book which, within so short a compass, con- 
tains such "many-coloured {jo^uwolxiT^og] wisdom," 
such a variety of minds, characters, and situations. 



Lect. VIII. 



The Koran. 



3'9 



b) The Koran represents not merely one single Narrow- 
person, bnt one single stage of society. It is, with a Koran! 
few exceptions, purely Arabian. It is what the Bible 
would be, if all external influences were obliterated, 
and it was wrapt up in a single phase of Jewish life. 
But in fact the Bible, though the older portion of 
it is strictly Oriental, and though the latest portion 
of it belongs not to the modern, but to the ancient 
and now extinct, world, yet even in its outward forms 
contains within it the capacities for universal dif- 
fusion. Emanating from Palestine, the thoroughfare Univer- 
of the Asiatic and European nations, itself a country Bible. ° f 
of the most diverse elements of life and nature ; it 
contains allusions to all those general topics which 
find a response everywhere. Whilst the Koran (with 
a very few exceptions) notices no phenomena except 
those of the desert, no form of society except 
Arabian life, the Bible includes topics which come 
home to almost every condition of life and almost 
every climate. The sea, the mountains, the town; 
the pastoral, the civilised, the republican, the regal 
state; can all find their expression in its words. 
Women emerge from their Oriental seclusion and 
foreshadow the destinies of their sex in European 
Christendom. And not only so, but Egypt, Chaldaaa, 
Persia, Greece, Kome, all come into contact with 
its gradual formation ; so that, alone of sacred books, 
it avowedly includes the words and thoughts of other 
religions than its own ; alone of Oriental books, it 
has an afiinity of aspect with the North and the West ; 
alone almost, of religious books, its story is constantly 
traversing the haunts of men and cities. The Koran 



3 20 



Mahometanism.. Lect. VIII. 



" stays at home." The Bible is the book of the 
world, the companion of every traveller; read even 
when not believed, necessary even when unwelcome, 
rurity of c) The Koran prides itself on its perfection of 
text in the composition. Its pure Arabic style is regarded as a 
proof of its divinity. To translate it into foreign 
languages is esteemed by orthodox Mussulmans to be 
impious, and when it is translated its beauty and 
interest evaporate. The book is believed to be in every 
word and point the transcript of the Divine original, 
Mahomet to have been literally " the sacred penman." 
No various readings exist. Whatever it once had 
were destroyed by the Caliph Othman. Such is the 
strength of the Koran. In far other and opposite 
quarters lies the strength of the Bible ; and Christian 
missionaries, who are, I believe, constantly assailed 
by Mussulman controversialists with arguments drawn 
from this contrast, ought to be well grounded in the 
knowledge that in what their adversaries regard as 
Variations our weakness is in fact our real strength. Its lan- 
Harities'of guage is not classical, but in the Old Testament un- 
tile Bibie. f couth, in the New Testament debased ; yet, both in 
the Old and New, just such as suits the truths which 
it has to convey. 1 The primitive forms of Hebrew 
are as well suited for the abrupt simplicity of the 
prophetic revelations, as they would be ill suited for 
science or philosophy. The indefinite fluctuating 
state of the Greek language at the time of the 
Christian era, admirably lends itself to the fusion of 

1 This is well drawn out by Professor Pusey in regard to the 
style of the Prophets (Commentary on Hosea, p. 5, 6), and by 
Professor Jowett in regard to the Greek of the New Testament 
(Commentary on S. Paul, i. p. 135; Essay on Interpretation, p. 390). 



Lect. VIII. 



The Koran. 



321 



thought which the Christian religion produced. Its 
various readings are innumerable, and, in the New 
Testament, form one of the most instructive fields 
of theological study. Its inspiration is not, as in the 
Koran, attached to its words, and therefore is not, as 
is the Koran, confined to the original language. It 
is not only capable of translation, but lends itself 
to translation with peculiar facility. The poetry of 
the Old Testament depending for the most part, 
not on rhyme or rhythm, but on parallelism, reap- 
pears with almost equal force in every version. The 
translations of the New Testament, from the supe- 
riority of most modern languages to the debased 
state of Greek at the time of the Christian era, are 
often superior in beauty of style and diction to the 
original. The Apostles themselves used freely a 
rude version of the Old Testament. We use, with- 
out scruple, conflicting and erroneous versions of 
both. The essence of the Bible, if the essence be 
in its spirit, and not in its letter, makes itself felt 
through all. 

d) The Koran claims &> uniform completeness of Monotony 

. . . . of the 

materials. It incorporates, indeed, some of the earlier Koran. 
Jewish, Christian, and Arabian traditions, but it pro- 
fesses to be one book. It has no degrees of authority 
in its several chapters, except in the few instances 
of direct abrogation of precepts. With these excep- 
tions, it is entirely stationary. It has no progress, and 
therefore no sequence, and no coherence. The Bible, 
in all these respects, stands on what some modern 
writers would deem a lower level, but on what is in 
fact a far higher one. Its composition extends over 
vol. 1. y 



322 



Mahometanism. 



Lect. VIII. 



Muitipii- two thousand eventful years. In most of its books are 
Bible! ' 6 embedded fragments of some earlier work, which have 
served to keep alive and to exercise the industry 
and acuteness of critics. It is not one Testament, 
but two. It is not one book, but many. The very 
names by which it was called in early times indicate 
the plurality of its parts. The word " Bible," which 
by a happy solecism expresses the unity of its general 
design, is of far later date and lower authority than 
the words " Scriptures, The Books, Biblia Sacra" 1 
by which it was called for the first twelve centuries 
of the Christian era, and which expressed the still 
grander and bolder idea of its diversity. The. most 
exact definition which it gives of its own inspiration 
is, that it is " of sundry times and hi divers manners." 2 
In the fact and in the recognition of this gradual, 
partial, progressive nature of the Biblical revelation, 
we find the best answer to most of its difficulties and 
the best guarantee of its perpetual endurance. 
The exciu- e) The Koran contains the whole religion of Ma- 

siveness of . 

the Koran, hornet. It is to the Mussulman, in one sense, far 
more than the Bible is to* the Christian. It is his 
code of laws, his creed, and (to a great extent) his 

1 For the original neuter plural of Biblia Sacra (the Sacred 
Books), the feminine singular (whence is derived our word 
" Bible," Die Bibel, La Bible, La Bibbia, &c.) first appears in the 
13th century. See Ducange in voce Biblia Sacra ; Smith's 
Diet, of Bible under Bible. 

2 Heb. i. 1. I have elsewhere had occasion to enlarge on the 
manifold instruction conveyed by this Scriptural definition of 
Scriptural revelation. Precisely this same use of the passage 
was made, in my hearing, by the present venerable metropolitan 
of Moscow, in answer to difficulties suggested by parts of the Old 
Testament. 



Lect. VIII. The Koran. 323 

liturgy. The Bible, on the other hand, demands for its 
full effect, the institutions, the teaching, the art, the 
society of Christendom. It propagates itself by other 
means than the mere multiplication of its printed or 
written copies. Sacred pictures, as is often said, are 
the Bibles of the unlettered. Good men are living 
Bibles. Creeds are Bibles in miniature. Its truths 
are capable of expansion and progression, far beyond 
the mere letter of their statement. The lives and 
deeds, and, above all, the One Life and the One Work 
which it records, spread their influence almost irre- 
spectively of the written words in which they were 
originally recorded. It is not in the close limitation 
of the stream to its parent spring, but in the wide 
overflow of its waters, that the true fountain of 
Biblical inspiration proves its divine abundance and 
vitality. 

" Mohammed's truth lay in a holy book, 
Christ's in a Sacred Life. 

ie So while the world rolls on from change to change, 
And realms of thought expand, 
The letter stands without expanse or range, 
Stiff as a dead man's hand. 

a While, as the life-blood fills the growing form, 
The Spirit Christ has shed 
Flows through the ripening ages, fresh and warm, 
More felt than heard or read." 1 

VI. It would be irrelevant to enter into any de- 
tailed comparison of the doctrines and practices of 

1 Milnes's Palm-Leaves, 38. The Preface contains an excellent 
summary of the better side of Mahometanism. 

y 2 



3H 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



Islam with those of Christianity. But they contain 
points of special contact or contrast which illus- 
trate the course of Christian theology and ecclesiasti- 
cal usages, as the peculiarities of the Koran illustrate 
the position of the Bible and the course of Christian 
exegesis. 

Likeness to 1. On the one hand, it is the extreme Protestantism, 
ism. or Puritanism, of the East. Whether or not the 
Iconoclasm of the seventh century in Constantinople, 
had any direct connection with the nearly contem- 
poraneous rise of Mahometanism, there can be little 
doubt that the two movements had rise in the same 
feeling of reaction against the excessive attention to 
outward objects of devotion. In the case of Ma- 
homet, there was superadded the sentiment, whether 
imitated from the Hebrew Scriptures or instinctive in 
the Arabian branch of the Semitic race, which returned 
with all its force to the belief in the One Unseen God. 
its icono- The Iconoclasm of Mahomet far exceeds that either 

clasm. 

of Leo the Isaurian or of John Knox. The Second 
Commandment, with Mussulmans, as with the Jews, 
was construed literally into the prohibition of all 
representations of living creatures of all kinds ; not 
merely in sacred places, but everywhere. The 
distinction drawn in the West, between Churches 
and houses, between objects of worship and objects 
of art, was in the simpler East unknown. The 
very form and name of u Arabesque " ornamentation, 
always taken from inanimate, never from animated 
nature 1 , tells the shifts to which Mahometans were 



See Burton, ii. 157. 



Lect. VIII. Likeness to Protestantism. 325 

driven, when civilisation compelled them to nse an 
art which their religion virtually forbade. The v one 
exception in the Alhambra (the same that occurred 
in the Palace of Solomon) is an exception that 
proves the rule. The rude misshapen " lions " that 
support the fountain in that beautiful court which 
bears their name, show how unaccustomed to such 
representations were the hands which to all other 
parts of the building have given so exquisite a 
finish. 

Other points of resemblance to the Reformed its simpli- 
city and its 

branches of the Christian Church — the more re- preaching, 
markable from the excessive ritualism of the East- 
ern Churches, and their almost entire neglect of 
preaching — are the simplicity of the Mussulman 
ceremonial, and the importance attached to sermons. 
The service of their sacred day, Friday, is, like 
Puritan worship, chiefly distinguished by the delivery 
of a discourse. 1 In the pilgrimage to Mecca, the 
delivery of the sermon is said to be the most im- 
pressive of all the solemnities. There are few 
Christian preachers who might not envy the effect 
described by one 2 not given to exaggerate religious 
influences : 

" The pulpit at Meccah is surmounted by a gilt polygonal 
pointed steeple, like an obelisk. A straight narrow staircase 
leads up to it. It stands in the great court of the Mosque. 
When noon drew nigh, we repaired to the haram for the 
sake of hearing the sermon. Descending to the cloisters 
below the Gate of Ziyadah, I stood wonder-struck by the 

1 An example is given in Lane's Modern Egyptians, i. 100. 

2 Burton's Pilgrimage, ii. 314 ; iii. 177. 

y 3 



326 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



scene before me. The vast quadrangle was crowded with wor- 
shippers sitting in long rows, and everywhere facing the cen- 
tral black tower ; the showy colours of their dresses were not 
to be surpassed by a garden of the most brilliant flowers, and 
such diversity of detail as would probably not be seen massed 
together in any other building upon earth. The women, a 
dull and sombre-looking groupe, sat apart in their peculiar 
place. The Pacha stood on the roof of Zem-Zem, surrounded 
by guards in Nizam uniform. Where the 'principal Ulema 
stationed themselves, the crowd was thicker; and in the 
more auspicious spots nought was to be seen but a pavement 
of heads and shoulders. Nothing seemed to move but a few 
dervishes, who, censer in hand, sidled through the rows and 
received the unsolicited alms of the faithful. Apparently in 
the midst, and raised above the crowd by the tall pointed 
pulpit, whose gilt spire flamed in the sun, sat the preacher, 
an old man with snowy beard. The style of head-dress 
called the Taylasan (a scarf thrown over the head,"*with one 
end brought round under the chin and passed over the left 
shoulder) covered his turban, which was as white 1 as his 
robes, and a short staff supported his left hand. Presently 
he arose, took the staff in his right hand, pronounced a few 
inaudible words (' Peace be with you, and the mercy of 
God, and his blessings') and sat down again on one of the 
lower steps, whilst a Muezzin, at the foot of the pulpit, re- 
cited the call to sermon. Then the old man stood up and 
began to preach. As the majestic figure began to exert 
itself, there was a deep silence. Presently a general c Amin' 
was intoned by the crowd at the conclusion of some long 
sentence. And at last, towards the end of the sermon, 
every third or fourth word was followed by the simultaneous 
rise and fall of thousands of voices. I have seen the re- 
ligious ceremonies of many lands, but never — nowhere — 
aught so solemn, so impressive as this spectacle." 

1 In former times, the preacher was habited from head to foot 
in black, and two muezzins held black flags fixed in rings, 
one on each side of the pulpit, with the staves propped upon the 
first step. 



Lect. VIII. Likeness to Catholicism. 327 

2. But in spite of the likeness to the more modern Likeness 
and northern forms of Western Christianity, Maho- Keism. 
metanism after all has far more affinity to the older, 
and especially to the Eastern forms of the Christian 
Church. 

Most of the peculiarities that characterise the 
Greek or the Latin Church, have their counterparts 
in the Mahometan system. 

a) In one instance, the Jewish element survives itssacri- 

. fices. 

almost unaltered. " The Mahometan religion," says 
Gibbon, as if in praise of its purity, " has no Priest and 
u 110 Sacrifice." This statement must be considerably 
qualified. Sacrifice, though it forms no part of the 
daily worship in the mosque, yet on solemn occa- 
sions is an essential element of the Mussulman ritual. 
To the Bedouin Arabs it is almost their only act of 
devotion. It was only under the pretext of sacri- 
ficing on the tomb of Aaron that Burckhardt was 
able to enter Petra. The railroad, recently opened 
from the Danube to the Black Sea, was inaugurated 
by the sacrifice of two sheep. The vast slaughter 1 
of victims at Mecca is the only scene now existing 
in the world that recalls the ancient sacrifices of 
Jew or Pagan. In short, it might be said that, so 
far from Mahometanism being the only religion 
without a sacrifice, it is the only civilised religion 
that retains a sacrifice, not spiritually or mystically, 
but in the literal ancient sense. 

b) Although a priesthood, in the sense of a here- its prfest- 
ditary or sacrificing caste, is not found in the Maho- 

1 See Burton, iii. 303, 313. 

Y 4 



328 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



metan world, yet a priesthood in the sense in which it 
is found in Protestant or Catholic Christendom, a 
powerful hierarchy, possessed of property and in- 
fluence, and swaying the religious feelings of man- 
kind, exists in Mahometan even more than in Chris- 
tian countries. The identification of the Koran with 
the Law at once raises the order of the interpre- 
ters of the Koran to a level with the highest legal 
dignitaries. The onice of Scribes, as we have seen, 
is exactly reproduced. The Sheykh- el- Islam, the 
great ecclesiastical functionary at Constantinople, 
who unites in himself the functions of the Primate 
and the Lord Chancellor, is, or at least was till 
lately, as considerable a personage as any prelate in 
Christendom, short of the Pope. The Sheykh-el- 
Bekr, at Cairo, the lineal descendant of Abu-Bekr, 
the administrator of the property of the mosques, 
is at least as high in popular estimation as Ar- 
chimandrite, Abbot, or Dean, in East or West. The 
Muftis and the Dervishes are a body as formidable 
to Mussulman rulers and laymen as any body of 
ecclesiastics or monks would be to the same classes 
amongst ourselves. To the dervishes the same 
blame and the same praise might be awarded as to 
the friars of the Western, or the hermits of the East- 
ern, Church. 1 

c) If it is startling to find this system of earthly 
mediation in a religion which we are often taught to 
consider as allowing no intervening obstacle between 
man and the One True God, still more are we sur- 

1 See Lecture X. ; and comp. Wolff's Life, i. 483. 



Lect. VIII. 



Likeness to Catholicism. 



329 



prised to find that the same system of celestial me- 
diation in the form of the worship or veneration of 
saints 1 , which prevails through the older portions of 
Christendom, has overspread the whole of the Maho- 
metan world. Bedouins who go nowhere else to 
pray 2 , will pray beside the tomb of a saint. The 
" Welys," or white tombs of Mussulman saints, form 
a necessary feature of all Mussulman landscapes. It 
is a significant fact, that the westernmost outpost of 
Mahometan worship — the last vestige of the retiring 
tide of Turkish conquest from Europe — is the tomb 
of a Turkish saint. On a height above the Danube, 
at Buda, the little chapel still remains, visited once a 
year by Mussulman pilgrims, who have to thread their 
way to it up a hill which is crowned with a Calvary, 
and through a vineyard clustering with the accursed 
grape. The Arabian traveller of the middle ages, 
who visits Thebes 3 , passes overall the splendour of its 
ruins, and mentions only the grave of a Mussulman 
hermit. The sanctity of the dead man is attested by 
the same means as in the Eastern Churches 4 , generally 
by the supposed incorruptibility of the corpse. The 
intercession of a well known saint is invested with 
peculiar potency. However much the descendants 
of a companion of the Prophet plunder or oppress, 

1 Compare Wolff's Life, i. 505. 

2 Comp. Sprenger, 107. It was against the wish of Mahomet 
himself. See Burton, ii. 71. 

3 " I went to the town of Luxor, which is small but pretty. 
There one sees the tomb of the pious hermit of Abou l'Hagag, near 
which is a hermitage." — Ibn Batoutah. p. 107. This is all that 
he says of Thebes. Ap. p. 33. 

4 Burton, ii. 111. 



33° 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



they are secure in the celestial protection of their 
ecclesiastical ancestor. 

These features it has in common with the doctrines 
and practices of the Latin, as well as the Greek 
Church. They show, on the one hand, that such 
points being the products of a religion outside the 
pale of Christendom, they cannot be regarded as es- 
sentially and peculiarly Christian ; and, on the other 
hand, that, being the natural growth of human feeling 
everywhere, they may be regarded calmly, and without 
the terror or the irritation which is produced when 
they are looked upon as the heritage of a near and 
rival Church or sect, 
its Eastern 3. There are yet other points in which Mahome- 
tanism, as being essentially an Oriental religion, 
approaches most nearly to the forms of Eastern 
Christendom, though retaining some defects and some 
excellences of the East, which even Eastern Churches 
have modified or rejected, 
its cere- «) The legal, literal, local, ceremonial character of 
the religion of Mussulmans is, in spite of its simplicity, 
carried to a pitch beyond the utmost demands either 
of Rome or of Russia. What their ideas of the Koran 
are, compared with even the narrowest ideas of the 
Bible, we have already seen. Prayer is reduced to a 
mechanical as distinct from a mental act, beyond any 
ritual observances in the West. It is striking to see 
the figures along the banks of the Nile going through 
their prostrations, at the rising of the sun, with the 
uniformity and regularity of clockwork; but it re- 
sembles the worship of machines rather than of rea- 
sonable beings. Within a confined circle of morality 



monial. 



Lect. VIII. Its Eastern Character. 



33i 



the code of the Koran makes doubtless a deeper im- 
pression than has been made on Christians by the 
code of the Bible. But beyond that circle there is 
but little of the vivifying influence which the Bible 
has unquestionably exercised even over the uncon- 
scious instincts and feelings of Christendom. Morality 
and religion, which stand sufficiently far asunder in 
the practice of Oriental Christianity, stand further 
still apart in the practice of a large part of Islam. 

b) The absence of religious art which we have Absence of 
already observed in Eastern, as distinct from Western, 
Christendom, is carried to the highest point by Ma- 
hometans. Partly this arises from the iconoclastic 
tendency before mentioned; but mainly it is the 

result of that carelessness of artistic effort which 
belongs to all Oriental nations. However tedious is 
the monotony of the Christian Churches of the East, 
that of Mahometan mosques is still more so. 

c) But if art is banished from their worship, reason Credulity, 
is no less banished from the creed, at least of the vulgar. 

The reckless extravagance of credulity which strikes 
us in Oriental Christians, strikes us still more in Ma- 
hometans. There are no miracles in the Koran ; but 
this only brings out into stronger relief the insatiable 
avidity with which any expression that could bear 
such a meaning has been magnified and multiplied 
into the wildest portents. It is the childish invention 
of the Arabian Nights let loose upon the unseen world. 
" I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago," 
says S. Paul 1 , "(whether in the body, or out of the 



1 2 Cor. xii. 2—6. 



33 2 



Mahometanism. Lect. VIII. 



" body I know not, God knoweth) ; such an one caught 
" up into the third heaven. . . . How that he was 
" caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable 
" things which it is not lawful for man to utter." 
Neither Scripture nor tradition says one word further 
to break this silence thus imposed upon himself by the 
Apostle. Contrast with this the endless stories told 
(as it would seem from his latest biographer 1 ) by 
Mahomet, after his vision of the nocturnal flight from 
Mecca, to his inquiring disciples, of the wonders of 
Paradise, of the peculiarities of the gigantic Borak, of 
the personal appearance of each of the departed pro- 
phets, of the leaves of the tree of life, of the immea- 
surable distances between the heavenly spheres. 
Excite- d) The frantic excitement of the old Oriental reli- 

ment. J 

gions still lingers in their modern representatives. 
The mad gambols of the Greek and Syrian pilgrims 
round the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre have been 
sufficiently told. But they ought in justice to be 
compared with the still wilder frenzy of the Mussul- 
man dervishes. Both are Eastern; both belong to 
those wild forms of religion which S. Paul laboured 
to restrain amongst the first Christian converts. 2 But 
the Mahometan shows in excess what the other shows 
in comparative moderation. Of all modern ceremo- 
nials, none probably comes so near the description of 
the priests of Baal, cutting themselves with knives 
and lancets, leaping on and around the altar, and 
shouting from morning till evening, " 0 Baal, hear 
" us ! " as the celebration of the Prophet's birthday at 



1 Sprenger's Mohammed, i. 126, 136. 

2 1 Cor. xiv. 26—40. 



Lect. VIII. 



Its Eastern Character. 



333 



Cairo \ when the dervishes, by the constant repetition 
of the name of " Allah, Allah," are worked into a 
state of unconsciousness, in which they plant swords 
in their breasts, tear live serpents with their teeth, 
eat bottles of glass, and finally lie prostrate on the 
ground for the chief of their order to ride on horse- 
back over their bodies. 

e) As in these extravagances, so also in some of its 
noblest aspects, we see the same spirit reappearing in 
Mahometanism that we have already noticed in the 
Churches of the East. 

That manly independence which knows no false indepen- 
shame or reserve in professing its religion in the face 
of the world, is the noble heritage of the Turk and 
the Arab, as much as of the Greek or the Russian. 
It is this which renders the Mussulman, even more 
than the Christian layman of the East, a priest to 
himself, independent of the instructions and the in- 
fluence of the hierarchy, whom he yet regards with 
profound veneration. It is this (combined no doubt 
with the mechanical nature of their prayers, to which 
I have before alluded) that renders their devotions, so 
natural, so easy, so public. It is this which lends to 
every Oriental congregation, but especially to every 
Mussulman congregation, its main distinction from 
every Western congregation, namely, the immense 
preponderance of men over women. In many Western 
Churches the man is the exception amongst the wor- 
shippers; in all Eastern mosques, the exception is 
the woman. 

1 I write from my own recollections. An accurate descrip- 
tion is given in Lane's Modern Egyptians, ii. 200 — 222. 



334 



Mahometanism. 



Lect. VIII. 



The gravity and the temperance of the Mussul- 
man are doubtless congenial to the dignity and sim- 
plicity of Oriental life. In these respects, both 
Western and Eastern Christianity, though gaining 
more, have lost much. " An Eastern city has no ex- 
" hibitions of paintings, no concerts, no dramatic 
" representations, only recitations of tales in prose 
u and verse in coffee houses ; and the prohibition of 
" games of chance excludes cards and dice. Wine 
" can only be drunk in private. . , . Gravity, not 
" dissipation, is, at least in public, the characteristic 
" of a Mahometan nation." 1 

Finally, the Mussulman preserves to the world 
the truest and most literal likeness of that ancient 
Jewish faith which is expressed in the word " Islam," 
" Resignation " to the will of God. However distorted 
it may be into fatalism and apathy, yet it is still a 
powerful motive both in action and in suffering. God 
is present to them, in a sense in which He is rarely 
present to us amidst the hurry and confusion of the 
West. If " the love of God" is a feeling peculiar to 
Christendom, yet the "fear of God" within a narrow 
circle may be profitably studied, even by Christians, 
in the belief and the conduct of the followers of 
Islam. 

These are the qualities which, being not so much 
Mahometan or Arabian, as Oriental, primitive, Semitic, 
and (in the best sense of the word) Jewish, no Chris- 
tian can regard without reverence, even in their 
humblest form; nor can he abandon the hope that 



Dr. Macbride's Mahometanism, p. 179. 



Lect. VIII. Its Eastern Character. 335 



if ever the time should come for the gathering of the 
followers of Mahomet within the Christian fold, gifts 
like these need not be altogether lost to the world 
and the Church in the process of that transition ; that 
the habits of temperance, devotion, and resignation, 
which Mussulman belief encourages, may be com- 
bined with the grace, the humility, the purity, the 
freedom of the Gospel. 



33^ The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



LECTURE IX. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



The main accessible authorities for the history of the Russian 
Church are, as far as I have been able to ascertain 
them, the following : — 

1. Nestor, the Monk of Kieff. a.d. 1116. 5 vols. 

(Edited by Schlozer. German. 1802.) 

2. Karamsin's " History of Russia." 1 1 vols. 8vo, to 

1618. (Translated into French.) 

3. Oustralieff's " History of Russia." 5 vols, to 1815. 

(Translated, not published, by the Rev. R. W. 
Blackmore.) 

4. Strahl's and Hermann's " History of Russia." 6 vols. 

to 1815. (German.) 

5. Mouravieff's " History of the Russian Church." 1 vol. 

8vo, to 1710. (Translated by the Rev. R. W. 
Blackmore.) 

6. Strahl's iC Contributions to the Russian Church His- 

tory." 1 vol. 8vo. (German.) It contains : — 

a. A Catalogue Raisonne of the Documentary 

History of the Russian Church. 

b. A Chronological Summary of Ecclesiastical 

History in Russia. 

c. A History of the Russian Sects. 

d. A Chronological List of the Russian Hierarchy. 

7. " Doctrines of the Russian Church." 1 vol. 8vo. 

(Translated by the Rev. R. W. Blackmore.) 

8. " History of the Church of Russia." (An able sum- 

mary in the Christian Remembrancer, vol. x. p. 245. 
By the Rev. J. B. Mozley.) 



Lect. IX. 



Its Importance. 



337 



9. Adelung's " Catalogue Raisonne of Travellers in 
Russia." 

10. " Monumenta Historiae Russicas." 2 vols. 8vo. (Being 

a collection of foreign State Papers bearing on 
Russia.) 

11. Haxthausen's " Researches in Russia." (German and 

French.) 



tance. 



The third great historical manifestation of the Oriental Th e Rus 

- m sian 

Church is the formation of the Russian Church and Church. 
Empire. 

Before I enter upon its leading divisions, let me its impor- 
give the main reasons why a history so obscure in 
itself, and in some of its features so repulsive, de- 
serves to be specially noticed in connection with the 
history of the Eastern Church, and why it is fitly 
considered before we cross the threshold of the 
history which most concerns ourselves, the history of 
the Western Church generally, and of the English 
Church in particular. 

I. The Russian Church is the only important portion Its history 

J x continuous 

of Eastern Christendom which presents any continu- andna- 

. tional. 

ous history. The two other epochs which we have 
noticed, although highly instructive in themselves, 
are yet isolated events, rather than long sustained 
movements. They represent particular phases of 
Eastern religion. They do not represent it in its 
active organisation, in its effects on national cha- 
racter, or its relations to the ordinary vicissitudes 
of men and of Empires. Western ecclesiastical 
history would lose more than half its charms, if it 
had not for its subject the great national Churches of 
vol. i. z 



338 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



Europe. And in like manner Eastern ecclesiastical 
history must fail of its purpose, unless it can find 
some field in which we can trace from century to 
century, and in their full-blown development, those 
principles and practices of the Oriental Church which 
have been already unfolded in general terms. 

This field is presented in the Russian Church. In 
it alone we trace a growth and a progress analogous 
to that which Western or Latin Christianity found 
in the Teutonic tribes of Europe. And, although 
the Northern and Sclavonic elements form the basis 
of the Church and Empire of Russia, yet by its 
situation, by its origin, and by the singular powers 
of imitation with which its members are gifted, it 
is essentially Asiatic and Oriental. And, further, 
through the gradual incorporation of Russia into the 
commonwealth of Western nations, the Eastern Church 
has acquired a voice or sj>eech, which it has lost, or 
has never gained, elsewhere. The feeling which the 
native Russians entertain towards the Western world 
is a likeness of the feeling which we ourselves enter- 
tain towards the Eastern world. The Russian word 
for a foreigner, but especially for a German, is " the 
dumb," " the speechless; " and it has happened within 
the experience of an English traveller, that Russian 
peasants, passing by and seeing a conversation going 
on in a foreign language, have exclaimed in astonish- 
ment — " Look at those people ; they are making a 
" noise, and yet they cannot speak ! " Very similar to 
this is the way in which, as a general rule, we regard, 
almost of necessity, the Eastern Churches generally. 
To us, with whatever merits of their own, they are 



Lect. IX. 



Its Oriental Character. 



339 



dumb. Their languages, their customs, their feelings, 
are unknown to us. We pass by and see them doing 
or saying something wholly unintelligible to us, and 
we say — " Look at those people; they are making a 
" noise, and yet they cannot speak !" In a great measure 
this difficulty severs us from the Russian Church, as 
well as from the other branches of Oriental Christen- 
dom. Still, in Russia, if anywhere in the East, we can 
from time to time listen and understand with advan- 
tage. The Sclavonic power of imitation opens a door 
which elsewhere is closed. The Western influences 
which from the age of Peter have streamed into Rus- 
sia, though they have often undermined the national 
character, have yet, where this is not the case, given to 
it the power, not only of expressing itself in Western 
languages, but of understanding Western ideas, and 
adapting itself to Western minds. A Russian alone 
presents, amidst whatever defects and drawbacks, this 
singular interest ; that he is an Asiatic 1 , but with 
the sensibility and intelligence of a European 2 : that 

1 A few of their Eastern customs may be mentioned, to which, 
doubtless, any one better acquainted with the country could add 
many more. 1. The practice of taking off the shoes on entering 
any great presence. This, though now discontinued, was till 
lately commemorated by the picture of Joshua taking off his 
shoes at the entrance of the Hall of the Kremlin. 2. The corner 
of a room is still the place of honour. The sacred picture is 
always in the corner. The Czar, at the coronation banquet, sits 
in the corner. The corners of the. Patriarchal church are occu- 
pied by the most illustrious tombs. 3. The seclusion of women 
lasted till the time of Peter, and still is kept up (in church) in 
the Russian sects. 4. The Orientalism of ecclesiastical usages 
they share with the rest of the Eastern Church. 

2 " They look as if they had had a Turk for their father and a 
Quaker for their mother." — Princess Dashkoff's Memoirs, ii. 318. 

z 2 



34° 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



he is, if we will, a barbarian, but with the speech 
and communications of civilisation. " Scratch him," 
said the Prince de Ligne, " and you will always find 
" the Tartar underneath." Most true ; but it is 
just that superficial coating of civilised life which 
brings " the Tartar " into contact with us, whom 
else we should never catch at all. " The Tartar," 
the Oriental, who in the Armenian, the Syrian, or 
the Abyssinian Church eludes our grasp altogether, 
in the Russian Church is within our touch, within 
our questioning, within our hearing, 
its parallel II. Another peculiarity of the history of the 

to ^V^GstGrn • • 

Christen- Church of Russia is that it enables us within a short 
compass to go through the whole field of ecclesiastical 
history, which in the West, whilst familiar to us in 
detail, is too vast to be comprehended in any one 
survey. With many differences, produced by diverse 
causes, of climate, of theology, of race, the history 
of the Russian Empire and Church presents a paral- 
lel to the history of the whole European Church, 
from first to last, not merely fanciful and arbitrary, 
but resulting from its passage through similar phases, 
in which the likenesses are more strongly brought 
out by the broad differences just mentioned. The 
conversion of the Sclavonic races was, to the Church 
of Constantinople, what the conversion of the Teu- 
tonic races was to the Church of Rome. The Papacy 
and the Empire of Charlemagne had, as we shall 
see, their dim reflection on the throne of Moscow. 
Russia, as well as Europe, had its middle ages, though, 
as might be expected from its later start in the race 
of civilisation, extending for a longer period. The 



Lect. IX. Its national Character. 



Church of Russia, as well as the Church of Europe, 

has had its Reformation, almost its Revolution, its 

internal parties, and its countless sects. 

The events are few ; the characters are simple ; but 

we shall read in them again and again, as in a parable, 

our own shortcomings, our own controversies, our 

own losses. The parts of the drama are differently 

cast. The Eastern element comes in to modify and 

qualify principles which we have here carried out to 

their full length, and beyond it ; but it is this very 

inversion of familiar objects and watchwords which 

is so useful a result of the study of ecclesiastical 

history, and which is best learned where the course 

of events is at once so unlike and so like to our own, 

as in the Church of Russia. 

III. In Russian history, the religious aspect, on its nation- 
al charac- 

which our thoughts must be fixed in these Lec- ter. 
tures, is on the one hand that part of it which is the 
least known, and yet on the other hand is full of 
interest, and not beyond our apprehension. It has 
been sometimes maintained by writers on political 
philosophy, that, however important in the forma- 
tion of individual life and character, Religion can- 
not be reckoned amongst the leading elements of 
European progress and civilisation. I do not enter 
into the general question: but the great Empire 
of which we are speaking, if it has not been 
civilised, has unquestionably been kept alive, by its 
religious spirit. As in all the Eastern nations, so in 
Russia, the national and the religious elements have 
been identified far more closely than in the West, and 
this identification has been continued, at least out- 

z 3 



34 2 



The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



war dry, in a more unbroken form. Its religious 
festivals are still national; its national festivals are 
still religious. Probably the last great historical 
event which in any European state has externally 
assumed a religious, almost an ecclesiastical, form is 
nearly the only event familiar to most of us in Eussian 
history, namely, the expulsion of the French from 
Moscow. From the moment when Napoleon, accord- 
ing to the popular belief, was struck to the ground 
with awe at the sight of the thousand towers of the 
Holy City, as they burst upon his view when he stood 
on the Hill of Salutation, to the moment when the 
tidings came of the final retreat " of the Gauls and of 
the thirty nations," as they are called, the whole atmo- 
sphere of the Russian resistance is religious as much 
as it is patriotic. The sojourn of the French in the 
Kremlin is already interwoven with religious legends, 
as if it had been an event of the middle ages. A 
magnificent cathedral has been added to the countless 
churches already existing in Moscow to commemo- 
rate the deliverance. " God with us " is the motto 
which adorns its gateway, as it was the watchword 
of the armies of the Czar. The sects, on the other 
hand, regarded Napoleon as their deliverer. Some 
of their most extravagant fanatics formed a depu- 
tation to him at Moscow. According to them he 
was a natural son of Catherine II., was brought up 
in a Russian university, and still lives concealed in 
Turkey, but will reappear as a chosen vessel in the 
moment 1 of their triumph. The services of Christ* 



1 Revue des Deux Mondes, xv. 611. 



Lect. IX. 



Its national Character. 



343 



mas Day are almost obscured by those which celebrate 
the retreat of the invaders on that same day, the 25 th 
of December 1812, from the Kussian soil; the last 
of that long succession of national thanksgivings, 
which begin with the victory of the Don and the 
flight of Tamerlane, and end with the victory of 
Beresina and the flight of Napoleon. " How art 
" thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the 
" morning !" This is the lesson appointed for the 
services of that day. " There shall be signs in the 
" sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon 
" the earth distress of nations with perplexity. Look 
" up and lift up your heads, for your redemption 
" draweth nigh." This is the Gospel of the day. 
"Who through faith subdued kingdoms, waxed va- 
" liant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the 
" aliens." This is the Epistle. 

I have dwelt on the religious aspect of this crisis, 
both because it may serve to remind us that there 
is at least one event in the history of the Eastern 
Church with which we are all acquainted ; and also 
because, coming as it does at the end of a series of 
similar deliverances and celebrations, it brings before 
us one special interest which the Russian ecclesiastical 
history possesses ; namely, its relation, both by way 
of likeness and illustration, to the history of the 
Jewish Church of old. Hardly in any European 
nation shall we so well understand the identity of 
the religious and national life in the ancient Theo- 
cracy, as through the struggles of the Russian people 
against their several invaders ; the keenness with 
which they appropriate the history of the Old dis- 

z 4 



344 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



pensation is but the natural result of their (in many- 
respects) analogous situation. In the sculptures of 
the cathedral of which I have just spoken as the 
monument of the deliverance of Moscow, it is the 
execution of one and the same idea, when the groupes 
from Russian history alternate with scenes from the 
story of Joshua's entrance into Palestine, of Deborah 
encouraging Barak, of David returning from the 
slaughter of Goliath, of the coronation and the gran- 
deur of Solomon. 

For these reasons, amongst others, I propose 
to give a rapid view of the main characteristics of 
the history of the Russian Church. Its doctrines, 
its ritual, and its actual condition have been virtually 
described in connection with the rest of Oriental 
Christendom, and to repeat this, or to represent as 
peculiarly Russian what is common to the whole 
East, would be at once superfluous and misleading. 

Periods of The story of the Russian Church divides itself into 

the history 

of the four periods : — 

Church. I. The period of its foundation, from the close of 
the 10th century to the beginning of the 14th. 

II. The period of its consolidation, from the begin- 
ning of the 14th century to the middle of the 17th. 

III. The period of its transition, from the middle 
of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th. 

IY. The period of its reformation, from the begin- 
ning of the 18th century to the present time. 

We begin, then, with the foundation of the 
Church in the conversion of the Russian nation. 
It is a standing reproach cast by the Latin Church 



Lect. IX. Its Foundation. 



345 



in the teeth of her elder sisters of the East, that 
Constantinople and its dependencies have never been 
centres of missionary operations comparable to those 
which have emanated from Rome, or from England. 

The truth of the reproach must, in a great measure, Missions 
be conceded, and arises from causes of which I have stantino- 
spoken before. But still it must not be accepted Teutonic 
without considerable modifications. It was not tnbes ' 
without reason that Gregory Nazianzen \ in a pas- 
sage which has been happily applied of late to our 
own country, describes Constantinople, even as early 
as the fourth century, as " a city which is the eye 
" of the world, the strongest by sea and land, the 
" bond of union between East and West, to which the 
" most distant extremes from all sides come together, 
" and to which they look up as to a common centre and 
" emporium of the faith." Even on the Teutonic 
races one irregular attempt was made by the By- 
zantine Church, which, had it succeeded, would have 
changed the face of Christendom. The mission of 
the Greek Bishop, the Arian Ulfilas, to the Gothic 
tribes, wrought wonders for a time. Down to the 
conversion of Clovis, whatever Christianity they 
had received was from this source ; and when 
Augustine, in his great work on the " City of God," 
celebrates the charity and clemency of Alaric and 
his followers during the sack of Rome, we must 
remember that these Christian graces were entirely 
due to the teaching of Oriental missionaries, heretics 
though they were. The very word " Church," as used 

1 i. 755. Quoted in a remarkable sermon on the "Evange- 
lisation of India," by the Eev. G. H. Curteis, p. 35. 



346 



The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



throughout the Teutonic tribes, was often in former 
times, and is still by some learned scholars, derived 
from the adaptation of the Greek word xupiaxy,- 
as received from the Byzantine preachers. But the 
rapid changes of events in the West swept away 
any permanent traces of the work of Ulfilas. It 
has now nothing but a philological interest. Its only 
memorial is the venerable volume, the parent, so 
to speak, of all the Teutonic versions of Scripture, — 
the silver-lettered manuscript, fitly deposited in the 
chief library of the Scandinavian people, in the 
University of Upsala, — which contains the only re- 
maining fragments of his translation of the Bible 
into the Gothic tongue, 
to the It is not in the Teutonic but in the Sclavonic race 

tribes. that the Eastern Church has reaped the richest har- 
vest. The conversion of the Sclavonic tribes on the 
confines of the Byzantine Empire is not to be alto- 
gether overlooked. 1 One name at least of European 
significance has been contributed to ecclesiastical 
history from this quarter. John Huss of Bohemia 
was a genuine son of the Sclavonic family, and it 
is perhaps more than a mere fancy which traces a 
likeness between his conceptions of reformation and 
those of his more Eastern brethren; and which de- 
rives his spiritual pedigree, if on the one hand from 
our own English Wy cliff e, on the other hand, in re- 
moter times, from the two Greek Bishops to whom I 
shall have occasion again to refer, Cyril and Metho- 
dius, the Apostles of Bulgaria and Moravia. 

But the centre and life of the Sclavonic race have 

1 Lecture I. p. 19. 



Lect. IX. Its Foundation. 347 



always been in those wilds of Scythia 1 , which have 
alternately invited or sent forth conquerors to and 
from the adjacent seats of civilisation in Greece or 
Asia Minor. The story of the Russian conversion, Conver- 
may be divided into two portions, the legendary Russia, 
and the historical; and each portion in the present 
instance is so characteristic of the nation, and so il- 
lustrative of like events in the West, that I will not 
scruple to dwell upon each of them in detail. 

1. I have before spoken of the peculiar connection Legendary 
of Oriental Christianity with the natural features 
of the regions which it has traversed: and in all 
countries this connection is more visible in the 
primitive stages of nations than in their subsequent 
growth. The geographical and historical relations 
of a country so monotonous as Russia are indeed 
far less striking than in the diversified forms of 
Greece and Syria, of Egypt and Chaldsea. Endless 
forests, endless undulating plains, invite no local as- 
sociations and foster no romantic legends. But there 
is one feature of Eussian scenery truly grand, its 
network of magnificent rivers. These, important for 
its political and commercial interests, are the threads 
with which its religious destinies have been always 
curiously interwoven. Turn your mind's eye to 
the vast stream of the Dnieper, the old Borysthenes, 
as it rolls into the Euxine. Over the banks of that 
stream, five hundred miles from its mouth, hangs a 

1 The name " Russ," Hebrew Rosh, LXX. 'Pwe, unfortunately 
mistranslated in the English version " the chief Prince," first 
appears in Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3, xxxix. 1. It is the only name 
of a modern nation found in the Old Testament. (See Gesenius.) 



348 



The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



low range of hills, low for any other country, but 
high for the level steppes of Russia, and therefore 
called KiefF, "the mountain." From that mountain, 
we are told, a noble prospect commands the course 
Voyage of of the river ; and up the course of that river, on his 
s.Andrew. f rom Sinope to Rome, came, according to the 
ancient legend, Andrew, the Apostle of Greece, the 
Apostle of Scythia : and as he rose in the morning 
and saw the heights of Kieff, on which he planted the 
first cross, he said, — " See you those hills ? For on 
" those hills shall hereafter shine forth the grace of 
" God. There shall be a great city, and God shall 
" cause many churches to rise within it." 1 And so 
he passed on by the north to Italy. 
Voyage of But northward another legend meets us of more 
.Antony. g ro ^ eg( ^ ue g^p^ j± saint of doubtful name and 

origin 2 started from Italy on one of those voyages 
which mediaeval credulity delighted to invent and to 
receive. He was thrown into the Tiber with a mill- 
stone round his neck, and on or with this millstone 
passed out of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic 
Ocean; through the islands of the Baltic he passed 
on into the Neva ; through the Neva he reached 
the Lake of Ladoga ; from the Ladoga Lake he passed 
into the broad YolkhotT; and from the VolkhofF, on 
the shores of the Lake of Ilmen, he found himself by 

1 See Nestor (ed. Schlozer), ii. 93. See also the strange legend 
which derives the name of Russia from S. Andrew's exclama- 
tion when put into the hot-vapour bath : "Ilpioua, " 1 sweat." 
Travels of Macarius, ii. 186. 

2 He was either S. Nicholas or Antony the Roman. A cup is 
shown in the treasury of the Assumption Church as brought by 
him. See Travels of Macarius, ii. 192, 193. 



Lect. IX. 



Its Foundation. 



349 



the walls of the great Novgorod, the irresistible re- 
public of Old Russia, the precursor of the northern 
capital of the New. 

These are fables of which every line is a quaint 
lesson in geography. But they also dimly fore- 
shadow, even as geography itself foreshadows, the 
fortunes of the Empires and Churches which are 
founded upon them. The Dnieper and the Neva are 
the two inlets by which life and light have penetrated 
into the vast deserts of Russia, from the East and 
from the West; through the race of the Norman 
Ruric, and through the race of the Byzantine Cae- 
sars ; through Ylaclimir in the first age, and through 
Peter in the last age, of the Russian Church. 

KiefF and Petersburg form the two extremities of 
Russian history, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The 
central sacred city of Moscow forms the point of 
transition, the point of contact between them, and 
will form the chief scene of the second and third 
periods of the Russian Church, as Petersburg of the 
fourth, and KiefF of the first. 

2. From this legendary beginning I pass to the Historical 

_ 1 . account of 

actual completion of the conversion of Russia as it is the con- 
described by Nestor 1 , himself a monk of KiefF, who 
occupies in the history of Russia almost the same 
position as that held in our own by the Venerable 
Bede. 

The time coincides with a great epoch in Europe, 
the close of the tenth century. When throughout 
the West the end of the world was fearfully expected, 

1 He lived a.d. 1050 to 11 16. (Nestor, ed. Schlozer, i. 7, 8, 9.) 



3 so The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 

when the Latin Church was overclouded with the 
deepest despondency, when the Papal See had be- 
come the prey of ruffians and profligates, then it was 
that the Eastern Church, silently and almost uncon- 
sciously, bore into the world her mightiest offspring. 

The one seed of energy and activity that had 
been in the ninth century scattered over Europe had 
Raric, also fallen upon Russia. The Norman race, which 
a.d. 86-. pi a y ec [ g0 i m portant a part in the civil and religious 
history of the West, as the allies or protectors of the 
Papal See, and as the founders of new dynasties in 
France, in Italy, in Sicily, and in England, had also 
established themselves on the throne of Russia in the 
Vladimir, family of Ruric. It is to his descendant Vladimir 
that the Russian Church looks back as its founder. 
In the conversion of each of the European nations 
there is a kind of foretaste or reflection of the 
national character and religion, which gives to the 
study of them an interest over and above their in- 
trinsic importance. The conversations of Ethelbert 
with Augustine, and of Clovis with Remigius, present 
peculiar elements characteristic respectively of the 
French and English people. This is eminently the 
case with the conversion of Vladimir. And the ac- 
count has further these two special advantages. 
First, though not actually by an eye-witness, it is yet 
by a narrator within the next generation, and is thus 
given with a detail which may serve to illustrate all 
like events. Nowhere else shall we see so clearly the 
mixture of craft and simplicity, of rough barbarian 
sense and wild superstition ; of savage force bowing 
down before the mere display of a civilised religion. 



Lect. IX. Its Foundation. 351 

We may be grieved, as we read, that through such 
weak and trivial means such great results should be 
brought about ; but every such case is a repetition 
on a gigantic scale, and in a various sense, of the 
parable of the grain of mustard seed. Secondly, 
the story of the conversion of Vladimir gives us 
an opportunity, such as we rarely possess, of a 
general survey of the whole of Christendom from a 
contemporary point of view. He, in this position 
won for him by his ancestors or himself, had become 
the object of attention to the different forms of religion 
then prevailing in the world. He is approached by 
each in turn. . He approaches each in turn. We have, 
if not the very words in which he and they described 
their mutual impressions, yet at least the words in 
which one who lived almost within then" generation 
thought it likely that they would have spoken. 

Let us, as nearly as possible, follow the narrative of 
Nestor, and apply as we proceed the remarks which I 
have just made. 

Whatever beginnings of the Christian faith had 
already been imparted to Russia here and there had 
made but little permanent impression. Adelbert, the 
great Western missionary of this period, attacked the 
Sclavonic Pagans, not in Russia, but in the Isle of 
Rugen 1 , on the extreme point of which a heathen 
temple remained till the twelfth century. Oskold and a.d. 866. 
Dir may have been terrified into baptism by a storm 
at Constantinople; Olga may have been attracted to a.-d. 965. 
it by a sense of policy ; but her grandson Vladimir 
was a ferocious prince, as much distinguished by 

1 Neander, vi. 70. 



352 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



his zeal for the rude idolatry of his countrymen as 
for his savage crimes. 

a.d. 986. To him, we are told, midway "between the 6000th 
and 7000th year of the world according to the ancient 
Eastern era, in the year 986 according to the Christian 
era of the West, there came envoys from the different 
religions of the then known world. 

Mission First came the Bulgarian Mussulmans from the 

garia. Volga. 1 " Wise and prudent Prince as thou art, thou 
" knowest neither law nor religion. Believe in ours, 
u and honour Mahomet." — " In what does your re- 
" ligion consist?" asked Vladimir. " We believe in 
" God," they replied, " but we believe also in what 
" the Prophet teaches. Be circumcised, abstain from 
" pork, drink no wine; and after death choose out of 
" seventy beautiful wives the most beautiful." — Vladi- 
mir listened to them for the last reason. But that 
which he did not like was circumcision, the absti- 
nence from pork, and above all the prohibition of 
drinking. " Drinking is the great delight of Rus- 
u sians," he said, " we cannot live without it." 

From the Next came the representatives of Western Chris- 

West. •« 

tendom. The question whence they came, or were 
thought to come, wavers in the story. From the Pope ? 
From Germany? From the sect then widely known, 
now almost forgotten, premature Protestants, the 
Paulicians ? 2 " The Pope," they said, "begs us to 
" tell you, your country is like ours, but not your 
" religion. Ours is the right. We fear God, who 
" made the heaven and earth, the stars and the 



1 Karamsin, i. 259. 



2 Ibid. i. 260. 



Lect. IX. Conversion of Vladimir. 



" moon, and every living creature, whilst thy Gods a d. 986. 
" are of wood." — " What does your law command? " 
asked Yladimir. "We fast," they said, " to the 
"best of our power; and when any one eats or 
" drinks he does it in honour of God, as we have 
" been told by our master, S. Paul." 1 — " Go home," 
said Yladimir. " Our fathers did not believe in 
" your religion, nor receive it from the Pope." 

Next, on being informed of this, came some Jews Mission 
(who lived among the Khozars). 2 " We have jews.^ 6 
" heard say that the Mahometans and the Christians 
" have tried to persuade thee to adopt their be- 
" lief. The Christians believe in Him whom we have 
" crucified. We believe in one God, the God of 
u Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." — "In what does your 
" law consist? " asked Vladimir. " Our law requires 
" circumcision, prohibits pork and hare, and enjoins 
"the observance of Saturday." — "Where then is 
"your country?" "At Jerusalem." — "What is 
"Jerusalem?" "God was wroth with our fore- 
" fathers; he dispersed us for our sins throughout the 
" world, and our country has fallen into the hands of 
" Christians." — " What," said Vladimir, "you wish to 
" teach others — you whom God has rejected and dis- 
" persed? If God had loved you and your law he 
" would never have scattered you abroad; do you 
" wish, perhaps, that we should suffer the same?" 

1 Compare the expressions respecting S. Paul in Karamsin, i. 
399. For the sect itself, see Gibbon, c. 54. Their persecution 
by the Empress Theodora is one of the worst instances of Eastern 
intolerance. 

2 For the Jews amongst the Khozars, see Nestor (French trans, 
p. 118). 

VOL. I. A A 



354 



The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



a.d. 986. In each of these answers we detect the character- 
istic temper of the Russian, his love of drinking, his 
tenacity of ancestral customs, his belief in the Divine 
right of success. 
Mission Another agency now appears on the scene. It is 
G?Sce. not a nameless barbarian, as before. It is, so the 
chronicler tells us, " a philosopher from Greece." 
The glory of Grecian culture still hung about its 
ancient seats, and the fittest harbinger of Christian 
truth, even in dealing with the savage Vladimir, was 
thought to be a Greek ; not a priest or a missionary, 
but a philosopher. 

" We have heard," said he, " that the Mahometans 
" have sent to lead you to adopt their belief. Their 
u religion and their practices are abominations in the 
u face of heaven and earth, and judgment will fall 
u upon them, as of old on Sodom and Gomorrah. 
" This is what they do who call Mahomet a prophet." 

This calls forth the first moral spark that we have 
seen in Vladimir's mind. He spat upon the ground 
and said, " This is shameful." 

" We have also heard," said the philosopher, " that 
u messengers have come from Rome to teach you. 
u Their belief differs somewhat from ours. They 
" celebrate the mass with unleavened bread, therefore 
" they have not the true religion." Such was the 
point on which the two greatest Churches of the 
world had been torn asunder, and into which Vladi- 
mir did not further inquire. He then took up the 
word himself and said : "I have also had Jews here, 
" who said that the Germans and Greeks believe on 
" Him whom we crucified." The philosopher as- 



Lect. IX. 



Conversion of Vladimir. 



355 



sentecl. " Why was He crucified?" asked Vladimir, a.d. 986. 
" If you will listen," replied the philosopher, " I will 
" tell you all from the beginning." " With pleasure," 
replied Vladimir. And the philosopher then pro- 
ceeded to relate all the Divine acts and deeds from 
the beginning of the world; the whole course, we 
may say, of ecclesiastical history, coming to a cha- 
racteristic close in the Seventh General Council. He 
then defined the true faith, and spoke of the future 
reward of the just and punishment of the impious, 
and at the same time showed to Vladimir a tablet, on 
which was painted the scene of the last judgment. 
Then, showing him on the right 1 the just, who, filled 
with joy, were entering into Paradise, he made him 
remark on the left the sinners who were going into 
hell. Vladimir, as he looked at the picture, heaved a 
sigh and said, " Happy are those who are on the 
" right; woe to the sinners who are on the left." " If 
" you wish," said the philosopher, "to enter with the 
"just who are on the right, consent to be baptized." 
Vladimir reflected profoundly, and said, " I will wait 
" yet a little while." For he wished first to be in- 
structed about each religion. But he loaded the 
philosopher with presents and sent him away. 

Vladimir in the next year sent for the nobles and a.d. 987. 
elders, and told them of the different interviews. 
" You know, 0 Prince," they said, " that no one 
" talks evil of his religion, but that all, on the con- 
" trary, praise their own. If you wish to know the 
" exact truth, you have wise men, send them to 

1 See the corresponding story of Bogoris and Methodius. (Ro- 
bertson, ii. 344.) 

A A 2 



356 



The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 



a.d. 987. " examine the faith of each and the manner of their 
" worship." 

We need not follow them throughout their journey. 
They reported that the Mussulmans prayed with their 
heads covered, and that their stench was insupport- 
able ; and that the German and Roman churches had 
no ornaments nor beauty, though better than the 
Mussulman mosques. 
Mission But the nobles insisted that the decision should 
tLopie! tan " n °t he made without knowing first what was the 
Greek religion ; and accordingly the envoys proceeded 
to the city which they call Tzarogorod. In that bar- 
barous name we recognise " the City of the Czar," 
or " King," the great Constantinople. 1 What it was 
at that period, the splendour of its ceremonial, both 
of Church and state, even in the most minute detail, 
is known to us from the nearly contemporary account 
of the German embassy from Otho. Basil Porphyro- 
genitus 2 was on the throne, with his brother Constan- 
tine ; and his words, in giving orders to the Patriarch 
to prepare for a magnificent reception of the strangers, 
indicate more than many treatises the importance he 
attached to the outward show of the ceremonial of 
the Church, as his grandfather had to the outward 

1 According to the fragment of the Byzantine Chronicles in 
Karamsin (i. 393), they went also " to the Patriarch of Borne, 
who is called the Pope," and returned with the hope of persuading 
Vladimir to join the Latin Church. The ground on which the 
nobles desired to hear of the Greek religion was ""that Con- 
stantinople was more illustrious than Rome." Compare a (spu- 
rious) letter by Vladimir's physician. Ibid. 354. 

2 Karamsin, i. 392. Also called " Bulgaroctonus," from his 
savage conquest of the Bulgarians. See, for his reign of fifty 
years, Finlay's Byzantine Empire, bk. ii. c. ii. § 2. 



Lect. IX. 



Conversion of Vladimir. 



357 



show of the ceremonial of the court. "Let them a.d. 987. 
" see," he said, "the glory of our God." The service 
was that of a high festival, either of S. John Chry- 
sostom, or of the Death of the Virgin. 

It was in the church — magnificent even now in church of 
its fallen state, then all gorgeous with gold and 
mosaics — of S. Sophia. Even had they been as far 
-as Rome itself, they would have seen nothing equal 
to it. S. Peter, as it now is, was far in the future. 
Cologne Cathedral was not yet born. The boast of 
Justinian was still the masterpiece of Christian 
architecture. 

The Russian envoys were placed in a convenient 
position. The incense smoked, the chants resounded, 
the Patriarch was in his most splendid vestments. 
One incident is preserved in a Byzantine annalist 
which the Russian chronicler has omitted. " The 
" Russians were struck," he says, "by the multitude 
" of lights and the chanting of the hymns; but what 
" most filled them with astonishment was the appear- 
" ance of the deacons and sub-deacons issuing from 
" the sanctuary, with torches in their hands ;" and, as 
we happen to know from an earlier source 1 , with 
white linen wings on their shoulders, at whose pre- 
sence the people fell on their knees and cried, " Kyrie 
" Eleison ! " The Russians took their guides by the 
hand, and said : " All that we have seen is awful and 
" majestic, but this is supernatural. We have seen 

1 Quoted in Bunsen's " Christianity and Mankind," vii. 45. 
The same tendency to impose upon foreigners appears in the ac- 
count of Liutprand's embassy, when he was received with the 
roaring of golden lions and the warbling of golden birds, 
(Gibbon, c. 53.) 

A A 3 



358 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



a.d. 987. " young men with wings, in dazzling robes, who, 
"without touching the ground, chanted in the air, 
" Holy ! holy ! holy ! and this is what has most 
" surprised us." The guides replied (and the Byzan- 
tine historian repeats it without changing the tone of 
his narrative, even in the slightest degree) : " What ! 
" do you not know that angels come down from 
"heaven to mingle in our services?" "You are 
" right," said the simple-minded Russians ; "we want 
" no further proof; send us home again." 

It is a striking instance of the effect produced on 
a barbarous people by the union of religious awe and 
outward magnificence, and the dexterity with which 
the Byzantine courtiers turned the credulity of the 
Russian envoys to account, is an example of the 
origin of many of the miracles of the middle ages ; 
not wholly fraud, nor wholly invention, but a union 
of the two ; a symbolical ceremony taken for a super- 
natural occurrence, and the mistake fostered, not by 
deliberate imposture, but by the difficulty of resisting 
the immense temptation to deception which such mis- 
takes afforded. A like confusion supports to this day 
the supposed miracle of the Holy Fire at Jerusalem. 

As in many similar cases the results far outlasted 
the sin or the weakness of the first beginning. " We 
" knew not," said the envoys on their return, "whether 
" we were not in heaven ; in truth, it would be im- 
" possible on earth to find such riches and magnifi- 
" cence. We cannot describe to you all that we have 
" seen. We can only believe that there in all likeli- 
" hood one is in the presence of God, and that the 
" worship of other countries is there entirely eclipsed. 



Lect. IX. Conversion of Vladimir. 



359 



" We shall never forget so much grandeur. Who- a.d. 987. 
" soever has seen so sweet a spectacle will be pleased 
" with nothing elsewhere. It is impossible for us to 
" remain where we are." 

The rest of the story may be shortly told. With 
some few Eastern touches, it is not unlike the na- 
tional conversions of the West. Vladimir, still in a a.d. 988. 
state of hesitation, besieged the city of Cherson in the 
Crimea, and, like Clovis, vowed that he would be 
baptized if he succeeded. He then sent to demand 
from the Emperor Basil the hand of his sister Anne 
in marriage, under the promise of his own conversion, 
and under the threat of doing to Constantinople as 
he had done to Cherson. With some difficulty Anne 
was induced to sacrifice herself to the barbarian 
prince, in the hope of averting so great a danger and 
effecting so great a good. Her sister Theophano had 
already been established on the throne of the German 
Otho. She acquired a more lasting fame as the 
channel through which Christianity penetrated into 
Eussia. 

He was baptized 1 accordingly at Cherson, and then Baptism of 
issued orders for a great baptism of his people at yiadimu * 
KiefF. They also hesitated for a short time. But a 
like argument, combined with the threat of the Grand- 
Duke, convinced them also. The huge wooden idol 
Peroun was dragged over the hills at a horse's tail, 
mercilessly scourged by twelve mounted pursuers, 
and thrown into the Dnieper, where it was guided 
and pushed along the stream till it finally disappeared 



1 For the accompanying miracle see Mouravieff, pp. 14, 354. 

a a 4 



3 6o 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



a.d. 988. down the rapids in a spot long afterwards known as 
the Bay of Peroun. The whole people of Kieff were 
immersed in the same river, some sitting on the 
banks, some plunged in, others swimming, whilst the 
priests read the prayers. " It was a sight," says 
Nestor, " wonderfully curious and beautiful to see; 
u and when the whole people were baptized, each one 
" returned to his own house." The spot was conse- 
crated by the first Christian church, and Kieff, which 
had already, as we have seen from old traditions, 
been the Glastonbury, became henceforward the Can- 
terbury, of the Russian Empire. 

Let me dwell on the points of this story - which 
contain its singular significance as the foundation of 
the Russian Church. 

influence 1. Observe the immense influence of Constanti- 

of Constan- 
tinople, nople. The effect of the Roman ceremonial on the 

Teutonic barbarians was powerful; but the effect of 
the Byzantine ritual on the Sclavonic barbarians 
must have been more powerful still. They returned 
believing that they had caught a glimpse of heaven 
itself. They clung to the recollections and to the 
support of that magnificent city, as children round 
the feet of a mother. In modern times and in po- 
litical matters the connection between Russia and 
Constantinople has been tarnished by baser motives, 
by constant suspicions, by the degradation of the one 
and the ambition of the other. But in earlier times, 
and in ecclesiastical matters, the relations between 
the two were always preserved with filial fidelity ; 
the more remarkable from the reversal of their re- 
spective positions in everything else. It is this which 



Lect. IX. Influence of Constantinople. 361 



makes the Russian Church so truly Eastern. France, 
Spain, Germany, have all in diverse degrees ceased 
to represent the type of the Roman Church, to which 
they owe their first faith. But in the Cathedral at 
Moscow is still maintained, in essential points, the 
likeness of the worship which won the hearts of Vla- 
dimir's ambassadors in the Cathedral of S. Sophia; 
and, although the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of 
Constantinople has been gradually relaxed in propor- 
tion to the increasing power of the Russian hierarchy 
and nation, yet the outward bond between the two 
Churches has never been broken. The Metropolitans 
of Russia were for five centuries either Byzantines or 
closely allied to Byzantium. Every successive change 
in their condition since has been confirmed by the 
Church of Constantinople. The transference of the 
see from KiefF to Moscow, the elevation of the Pri- 
macy into a Patriarchate, and finally the transform- 
ation of the Patriarchate into a Synod, have all been 
recognised by the Eastern Patriarchs themselves ; and, 
whatever inward jealousy they may have of their 
powerful neighbour, there is no ground for the po- 
pular Western notion that the Church of Russia is 
in a state of antagonism to the other Churches of the 
East. Whatever its errors, or its crimes, or its ex- 
cellencies, it cannot be divided from the general for- 
tunes of Oriental Christendom. The union of Vladimir 
with Anne is still a living power. 

2. I have elsewhere described the inheritance of Veneration 
Eastern doctrine and practice which Russia thus p^tos? 01 
received and developed in common with the other 
Oriental Churches. But two or three points stand 



362 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



out conspicuously in the history of the conversion. 
One such characteristic of the Eastern Church gene- 
rally, but eminently characteristic of Eussian eccle- 
siastical history, is the influence exercised over this 
its first beginnings by the effect of the sacred pic- 
tures on the mind of the Grand- Duke. That picture 
of the Last Judgment inaugurated, so to speak, the 
influence of its innumerable successors of the same or 
of other sacred subjects, down to the present day. 
No veneration of relics or images in the West can 
convey any adequate notion of the veneration for 
pictures in Eussia. It is the main support and stay 
of their religious faith and practice ; it is like the rigid 
observance of Sunday to a Scotchman, or the Auto 
da Fe to an ancient Spaniard, or fasting to a Copt, 
or singing of hymns to Methodists. Everywhere, in 
public and in private, the sacred picture is the con- 
secrating element. In the corner of every room, at 
the corner of every street, over gateways, in offices, 
in steamers, in stations, in taverns, is the picture 
hung with the lamp burning before it. In domestic 
life it plays the part of the family bible, of the wed- 
ding gift, of the birthday present, of the ancestral 
portrait. In the national life, it is the watchword, the 
flag, which has supported the courage of generals 
and roused the patriotism of troops. It has gone 
forth to meet the Tartars, or the Poles, or the French. 
It has thus been carried by Demetrius, by Peter, by 
Suwaroff, by Kutusoff. A taste, a passion for pic- 
tures, not as works of art, but as emblems, as lessons, 
as instructions, is thus engendered and multiplied hi 
common life beyond all example elsewhere. The 



Lect. IX. 



Sacred Pictures. 



,363 



symbolical representation of sacred truth extends 
even to the natural world. A dove or pigeon is 
considered as a living picture (" obraz ") of the Holy 
Spirit, and therefore no Russian peasant will eat one. 
Even a Syrian traveller from the distant East, in the 
seventeenth century, observed what no less strikes 
an English traveller from the J^est in the nineteenth 
century, how (to use his own words) — 

" The Muscovites are vastly attached to the love of pic- 
tures, neither regarding the beauty of the painting nor the 
skill of the painter, for with them a beautiful and an ugly 
painting are all one, and they honour and bow to them per- 
petually, though the figure be only a daub of children, or a 
sketch upon a leaf of paper ; so that, of a whole army, there 
is not a single man but carries in his knapsack a gaudy 
picture within a simple cover, with which he never parts, 
and wherever he halts he sets it up on a piece of wood and 
worships it." 1 

And when from common life we pass to the church, 
still the same peculiarity presents itself. Frequently 
the groupes of passers-by may be seen looking at 
the elaborate representations of this or that Scrip- 
tural event or legendary scene, or a New Testament 
parable or an Old Testament miracle. One better 
informed than the rest will explain it to his com- 
panions, and these pictorial communications are pro- 
bably the chief sources of religious instruction im- 
parted to the mass of the Russian peasantry. Or 
enter within a church, at least any church such as 
those at Moscow, which best represent the national 
feeling. There the veneration has reached a pitch which 
gives an aspect to the whole building as unlike any 



1 Travels of Macarius, ii. 50. 



3^4 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



European church as the widest difference of European 
churches can separate each from each. From top to 
bottom, from side to side, walls and roof and screen 
and columns are a mass of gilded pictures ; not one 
of any artistic value, not one put in for the sake 
of show or effect, but all cast in the same ancient 
mould, or overcast with the same venerable hue; 
and each one, from the smallest figure in the smallest 
compartment to the gigantic faces which look down 
with their large open eyes from the arched vaults 
above, performing its own part, and bearing a relation to 
the whole. One only other style of sacred architecture 
is recalled by this strange sight. It is as if four co- 
lumns (for there are but four in an Orthodox Eastern 
church) had been transplanted from the mighty forest 
of pillars in the great temple of Egyptian Thebes. High 
and massive as these pillars do these four columns 
rise up, and round and round they are painted, with 
ever recurring pairs, as there of Egyptian gods, so here 
of Christian martyrs. And as the walls there are hung 
from head to foot with battle-pieces or sacred pro- 
cessions, so here with Apostles, Prophets, Patriarchs, 
parables, history, legend. The Seven Councils of the 
Church follow in exact and uniform order, closing 
on the western end with a huge representation of 
the Last Judgment, such as converted Yladimir. In 
one sense the resemblance to Egypt is purely acci- 
dental. But in another sense it is almost inevitable. 
Egypt and Russia are the only two great nations in 
which pictures or pictorial emblems have entered so 
deeply into the national life and religious instruction 
of the people. Hieroglyphics and pictures constituted 



Lect. IX. Sacred Pictures. 



365 



more than half the learning of those grown-up children 
of the ancient world ; they still constitute more than 
half the education of these grown-up children of the 
modern world. It may be questioned whether an un- 
instructed Englishman or an uninstructed Eussian 
would be most inclined to look upon the other as an 
absolute Pagan, the one for never being able to say 
his prayers without pictures, the other for never say- 
ing his prayers with them. And when we remember 
that some of these pictures have, besides their interest 
as the emblems of truth to a barbarian and child-like 
people, acquired the historical associations involved in 
the part they have taken in great national events, it 
is not surprising that the combination of religious 
and patriotic feelings in Russia should have raised 
their veneration to a pitch to us almost inconceivable. 
The history of a single picture becomes almost the 
history -of the nation. Brought by Yladimir from 
Cherson, believed to have been painted by Constantine 
the Great, used on every great occasion of national 
thanksgiving and deliverance, deposited in the most 
sacred of Russian cathedrals, the picture, as it is 
called, of " our Lady of Vladimir " represents exactly 
the idea of an ancient palladium ; whilst the fact that 
it is not a graven statue vindicates it in their eyes 
from all likeness to a Pagan idol. It is a sentiment 
which, according to Western views, cannot be imitated, 
but which, if only in order to be avoided, must be 
understood and explained. 

3. Another prominent feature of the conversion is 
the fact that alone of all the European nations (unless 
Spain and Hungary are counted exceptions) Russia 



3 66 



The Russian Church. 



Uct. IX. 



was Christianised without the agency of missionaries, 
influence of and chiefly by the direct example, influence, or com- 
Muthonty. man ^ ( w ] uc l iever we choose to call it) of its Prince. 

There is Martin the Apostle of Gaul, and Augustine 
of England, and Boniface of Germany; but there 
is no Apostle' of Russia except Yladimir, who bears 
the same title as that of Constantine, 44 Isapostolos " ; 
44 Vladimir equal to an Apostle." 

It is a remarkable example of the religious aspect 
of the temporal sovereign, which, though cherished 
everywhere in the Eastern Churches, has, as we 
shall hereafter see, always exercised a more power- 
ful influence in Russia, from the peculiarly docile 
and yielding character of the Sclavonic race. 44 Our 
44 country is large and fertile, but we have no or- 
44 der amongst us. Come amongst us to reign and to 
44 rule over us." 1 Such was the address of the Rus- 
sians to the Norman chief Ruric, their first sove- 
reign. And in like manner the same argument of 
higher authority carried with it their conversion. 
44 If the Greek religion had not been good," said the 
nobles to Yladimir, 44 it would not have been adopted 
" by your grandmother Olga, wisest of mortals." 
And again : 44 If baptism were not good," said the 
people of KiefF, 44 it would not have been adopted by 
44 our princes and nobles." As far as the clergy 
were concerned, they were mere passive instru- 
ments in the hands of the prince and the people. 
There were no tithes, with one single exception which 
proves the rule. They lived, as they have lived ever 
since, on the free offerings of their flocks. The 

1 Haxthausen, iii. 34. 



Lect. IX. Vernacular Translation of the Bible. 367 



Eussian establishment is a combination, difficult to 
square with our preconceived English notions, of 
the strictest form of a State religion with the widest 
application of the voluntary principle. I shall not 
here dwell further on this aspect of the Russian re- 
ligion. We shall have occasion to return to it here- 
after, and on one side of it, the most hopeful of all 
the peculiarities of the Eastern Church, I have dwelt 
before; namely, the vast weight and responsibility 
thrown into the hands of its laymen by the prin- 
ciples of the Church itself. 

4. But there is another point connected with this, Vernacular 

translation 

which helps us to a feature of the conversion not dis- of the 
tinctly brought out in the narrative of Nestor. It 
appears from that narrative, and has been often ob- 
served, that, as compared with the Western nations, 
the spread of the Christian religion was more rapid 
and more easy than in any other country. No violent 
collision, no martyrdom, either of Christian or Pagan, 
marked the progress of the new religion. The docile 
character of* the people, the outward and ceremonial 
nature of that form of Christianity which they re- 
ceived, the slight hold of their old mythology, may 
all account for this. But it would be wrong to omit 
one element in the transaction, on which much stress 
is laid by later Russian historians and which un- 
doubtedly was a matter of great moment in the mode 
of exhibiting Christianity to the nation. In every 
country converted by the Latin Church the Scriptures 
and the Liturgy had been introduced, not in the verna- 

1 For the whole of this view of the effect of the Sclavonic 
translation, see OustralicfTs History of Russia, c. i. § 5 (as commu- 
nicated to me in a MS. translation by the Rev. R. W. Blackmore). 



3 68 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



cular language of the original or conquered population, 
but in the language of the government or mission- 
aries, the Latin language of the old Empire and. new 
Church of Rome. Our own sense and experience 
are sufficient to tell us what a formidable obstacle 
must have been created by this single cause to 
the mutual and general understanding of the new 
faith ; what barriers between the conquerors and con- 
quered, between the educated and the vulgar, above 
all, between the clergy and the laity. The ill effects 
of the tardy translation of our own Bible and Prayer- 
book into Welsh and Irish amply indicate the pro- 
bable results. In the Eastern Church, on the other 
hand, a contrary method was everywhere followed. 
The same principle which had, in his ceil at Bethlehem, 
dictated the original translation of the Bible by Jerome 
into what was then the one known language of the 
West, was adopted by the Greek Church with regard 
to all the nations that came within their sphere. 
Hence, in the remote East, sprang up the Coptic, 
Armenian, and Ethiopic versions ; hence, in the only 
attempt (which I have already described) made by 
the Eastern Church on the Western barbarians, 
Ulfilas immortalised himself by producing the only 
wide-spread translation of the Scriptures which ex- 
isted in any Western language till the times of 
a.d. 863. WyclifFe. In like manner, at the approach of the 
Greek Church to the Sclavonic nations on the shores 
of the Danube, the first labour of the missionaries, 
Cyril (or Constantine) and Methodius, was to invent 
an alphabet for the yet unwritten language of the 
Sclavonic tribes, in order at once to render into this 



Lect. IX. Sclavonic Version of the Scriptures, 369 



language the whole of the New Testament, except 
the Apocalypse, and the whole of the Psalter in the 
Old. Bulgaria, by its position on the frontiers of 
the Greek and Latin Churches, was a constant source 
of discord between them. On this occasion the use of 
the version already sanctioned by Constantinople was 
also referred to Rome, and was allowed on grounds 
which in fact justify the use of vernacular translations 
everywhere ; though it was afterwards condemned by 
the same authority, with that remarkable inconsis- 
tency and fluctuation which have always distinguished 
the policy of the Papal chair on the subject of the 
circulation of the Bible. It was sanctioned on the 
ground that the Psalmist says, "Let everything that 
" hath breath praise the Lord," that is, in the different 
languages. It was condemned on the ground that 
Methodius was a heretic, by a strange confusion be- 
tween him and his Arian predecessor, Ulfilas. 1 

The translation of Cyril had been in existence for a Eussian 
century before the conversion of Vladimir, and was languag< 
thus at once ready for use by the Greek Bishops and 
clergy who accompanied the Princess Anne to Kieff. 
Of these hardly anything is known. But Cyril and 
Methodius, if any one, must be considered by an- 
ticipation as the first Christian teachers of Rus- 
sia : their rude alphabet first instructed the Russian 
nation in letters, and by its quaint Greek characters 
still testifies in every Russian book, and on every 
Russian house or shop, the Greek source of the reli- 
gion and literature of the Empire. The Russian 



1 For the authorities, see Gieseler, 3rd period, 2nd sec. § 38. 
VOL. I. B B 



37° 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



language was thus elevated to a dignity unknown at 
that time to any of the harharous dialects of Western 
Europe ; and such as was only imparted at a much 
later period, by Dante to the Italian, and by Luther's 
translation of the Bible to the German, language. 
The ancient Sclavonic speech, thus attaining almost at 
a single bound to the perfection elsewhere reached 
only by slow degrees and laborious efforts, has now 
in turn fallen behind the growth of the modern 
language of Russia ; and the same difficulty has arisen, 
or is fast arising, which besets the use of the ancient 
phraseology of the sacred books of all even the most 
vernacular languages. But the work of Cyril and 
Methodius gave at once a national character to the 
Scriptures and Liturgy, and a religious character 
to the literature and language of Russia, which have 
never been effaced ; and, in the first instance, must have 
kept alive, before the minds of the people and clergy, 
both a sense of their common religious interest, and 
a knowledge of the leading truths of Christianity, 
such as could hardly have been possessed by the 
contemporary Churches and nations of the West. 

To some such cause as this, combined with the 
natural vigour of the people, must be ascribed the fact 
that the Christianity of Russia, introduced by these 
purely external and formal influences, early exhibited 
a practical strength hardly to be recognised in the 
other Churches of the East, and sometimes equal 
even to the energetic zeal of Western Christendom. 

Of this early period there are two Princes whom 
the Russian Church has dignified with the name of 
saint. Tlie first, Vladimir its founder in the tenth 



Lect. IX. The first Christian Princes. 



371 



century ; the second, Alexander of the Neva, so called 
from the victory in which he repulsed the Swedes on ^ 
the banks of that river hi the thirteenth century. The a.d. 1247. 
first has found his rest at KiefT ; the other sleeps in a 
magnificent shrine in the capital which centuries 
afterwards rose beside his own Neva. Each of them, 
no doubt, has his claims to veneration. The savage 
character of Yladimir seems to have been tamed and 
softened by his conversion. Alexander seems to have 
united in an eminent degree the virtues of the soldier 
and the pacificator. But, as we often observe in the 
history both of the Western and Eastern Churches, 
the title of " saint " has not been the surest index of 
true Christian excellence ; and, on the whole, there 
are two other Princes of this age whose memory has 
a better savour than that of the two royal saints just 
named. One is the legislator JaroslafT, who Intro- a.d. 1017. 
duced into Kussia the Byzantine system of Canon 
Law, and the first beginnings of Christian education. 
The other is Vladimir the Second, or as he is usually Vladimir, 
called, probably from the Byzantine Emperor of the chus, 
same surname, Yladimir Monomachus ] , whose date A ' D * U13, 
may be fixed hi our minds by his marriage with 
Gytha 2 , daughter of our own Harold. The details of 
his life can only be understood through the intricate 
and obscure events of his time. But his general 
character may be sufficiently gathered from his own 
words, in the dying injunctions left to his sons. They 
show that, underneath the load of Byzantine cere- 
monial and the roughness of Russian barbarism, there 
lived a spark of true manly goodness ; and that he was 
1 Mouravieff, p. 20. 2 Karamsin, ii. 211. 

b b 2 



372 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. IX. 



not unworthy of the model of a just and religious 
ruler in the 101st Psalm, which was sent to him by 
the Russian Primate 1 , with an exhortation to learn it 
by heart, to meditate upon it, and to fashion his go- 
vernment accordingly. His love of the Psalter, his 
rapid travelling, the turn for foreign languages, the 
union of fierceness and devotion, all go to make up a 
genuine portraiture of a Russian Christian of early 
days : — 

" O my children, praise God and love men. For it is not 
fasting, nor solitude, nor monastic life, that will procure you 
eternal life, but only doing good. Forget not the poor, 
nourish them ; remember that riches come from God, and are 
given you only for a short time. Do not bury your wealth 
in the ground ; this is against the precepts of Christianity. 
Be fathers to orphans. Be judges in the cause of widows, 
and do not let the powerful oppress the weak. Put to death 
neither innocent nor guilty, for nothing is so sacred as the life 
and the soul of a Christian. Never take the name of God 
in vain ; and never break the oath you have made in kissing 
the crucifix. My brethren said to me, e Help us to drive 
out the sons of Rostislof, or else give up our alliance.' But 
I said, f I cannot forget that I have kissed the cross.' I 
opened then the book of Psalms, and read there with deep 
emotion : — f Why art thou so vexed, O my soul, and why 
art thou so disquieted within me ? Put thy trust in God. I 
will confess my faults, and he is gracious.' 

" Be not envious at the triumph of the wicked and the suc- 
cess of treachery. Fear the lot of the impious. Do not 
desert the sick : do not let the sight of dead corpses terrify 
you, for we must all die. Receive with joy the blessing of the 
clergy: do not keep yourself aloof from them: do them good, 
that they may pray to God for you. Drive out of your heart 
all suggestions of pride, and remember that we are all perish- 
able — to-day full of hope, to-morrow in the coffin. Abhor 

1 Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 95. 



Lect. JX. The first Christian Pimces. 



lying, drunkenness, and debauchery. Love your wives, but 
do not suffer them to have any power over you. Endeavour 
constantly to obtain knowledge. Without hav>:ig quitted 
his palace, my father spoke five languages ; a thing which 
wins for us the admiration of foreigners. 

" In war be vigilant ; be an example to your boyards. 
Never retire to rest until you have posted your guards. 
Never take off your arms while you are within reach of the 
enemy. And, to avoid being surprised, always be early on 
horseback. When you are on horseback say your prayers, 
or at least the shortest and the best of all, 6 Lord, have mercy 
upon us.' 

" When you travel through your provinces, do not allow 
your attendants to do the least injury to the inhabitants. 
Entertain always at your own expense the master of the 
house in which you take up your abode. 

" If you find yourself affected by any ailment, make three 
prostrations to the ground before the Lord ; and never let 
the sun find you in bed. At the dawn of day, my father, 
and the virtuous men by whom he was surrounded, did thus : 
they glorified the Lord, and cried, in the joy of their hearts, 
6 Vouchsafe, O my God, to enlighten me with thy divine 
light.' They then seated themselves to deliberate, or to 
administer justice to the people, or they went to the chase ; 
and in the middle of the day they slept ; which God permits 
to man as well as to beasts and birds. 

te For my part, I accustomed myself to do everything that 
I might have ordered my servants to do. Night and day, 
summer and winter, I was perpetually moving about. I 
wished to see everything with my own eyes. Never did I 
abandon the poor or the widow to the oppressions of the 
powerful. I m»le it my duty to inspect the churches and 
the sacred ceremonies of religion, as well as the management 
of my property, my stables, and the vultures and hawks of 
my hunting establishment. 

ee I have made eighty-three campaigns and many expedi- 
tions. I concluded nineteen treaties with the Poloctzy. I 
took captive one hundred of their princes, whom I set free 
again ; and I put two hundred of them to death, by throwing 
them into rivers. 

B B 3 



374 The Russian Church. Lect. IX. 

5 

(< No one has ever travelled more rapidly than I have 
done. Setting out in the morning from Tchernigof, I have 
arrived at Kieff before the hour of vespers. 

" In my youth, what falls from my horse did I not ex- 
perience ! wounding my feet and my hands, and breaking 
my head against trees. But the Lord watched over me. 

" In hunting amidst the thickest forests, how many times 
have I myself caught wild horses and bound them together ! 
How many times have I been thrown down by buffaloes, 
wounded by the antlers of stags, and trodden under the feet 
of elks ! A furious wild boar rent my sword from my 
bald rick : my saddle was torn to pieces by a bear ; this ter- 
rible beast rushed upon my courser, whom he threw down 
upon me. But the Lord protected me. 

e( O, my children, fear neither death nor wild beasts. 
Trust in Providence : it far surpasses all human pre- 
cautions." 1 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

400. Mission of Ulphilas to the Goths. 

862. FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIEE BY 

RURIC. 

863. Mission of Cyril and Methodius to Bulgaria, and Trans- 

lation of the Bible into Sclavonic 
879. Oskold and Dir martyred as Christians by Oleg. 
955. Baptism of Olga. 

988. Baptism of Vladimir at Kherson, and Conversion of Russia 
at Kieff. 

1010. Foundation of the Pechersky Monastery at Kieff. 

1015. Martyrdom of Boris and Glieb. 

1017. Accession of Jaroslaf I. *■ 

1054. Foundation of the Church of S. Sophia at Novgorod. 

1108. Chronicles of Nestor. 

1113. Accession of Vladimir Monomachus. 

124 6. Alexander Nevsky. 



1 Karamsin, ii. 202. 



Lect. X. 



In the Middle Ages. 



375 



LECTUEE X. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



Amongst the special authorities for this period may be 
named : — 

1. " The present State of Russia." By Samuel Collins, 

M.D. 1671. 

2. "Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century." 

(Edited by Mr. Bond for the Hakluyt Society.) 
1856. 

It contains : 

a) " A Treatise on the Russian Commonwealth." By 

Dr. Giles Fletcher. 1588. 

b) « The Travels of Sir Jerome Horsey." 1591. 



We have reached the period which in Russia most 
nearly corresponds to the Middle Ages of Europe. 
But, as might be expected from the much later birth 
of the Russian Church and Empire, this period both 
begins and ends much later than the corresponding 
epoch in the West. The consolidation of the Teu- 
tonic tribes must be carried back to Charlemagne in 
the ninth century; whereas the consolidation of the 
Sclavonic tribes, by the creation of the central capital 
of Moscow, dates from the beginning of the fourteenth 
century. The European middle age ends with the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. The Russian 

li 13 4 



376 



The Russian Church 



Lect. X. 



middle age continues at least till flie middle of the 
seventeenth century, and in some sense even till the 
opening of the eighteenth. 

These synchronisms, or anachronisms, as we might 
almost rather call them, are necessary to bear in 
mind as illustrations of the relative positions of 
Eastern and Western Christendom. It is the period 
between these limits which I now propose shortly to 
describe. 

Of this whole period, the local scene and the out- 
ward symbol, still surviving the events which gave it 
birth, is Moscow. That marvellous city is the very 
personification of the ecclesiastical history of Russia. 
It is indeed a personification of it even in the literal 
sense. " Our holy mother, Moscow," is the peasant's 
endearing name for the city; nay, even for the road 
which leads to it, " Our dear mother, the great road 
" from Yladimir to Moscow." 1 Hallowed by no Apo- 
stolic legends, not even by any Byzantine missions ; 
cleared out of the forests which down to the four- 
teenth century overhung, and still leave their names 
on, the banks of the Moskwa; with no other attrac- 
tions than its central situation in the heart of the 
Russian Empire, it has yet acquired a hold over the 
religious mind of a larger part of Christendom, than 
is probably exercised by any other city except Jeru- 
salem and Rome. Look at its forest of towers and 
domes, springing like gaudy flowers or weeds — blue, 
red, green, silver, golden — from the wide field of 
green roofs, and groves, and gardens. It is a very 



Haxthausen, iii. 151. 



Lect. X. 



in the Middle Ages. 



377 



Russian Rome 1 , no donbt ; but still, like it, the city 
of innumerable churches, of everlasting bells, of end- 
less processions, of palace and church combined, of 
tombs and thrones, and relics and treasures, and in- 
vasions and deliverances, as far back as its history ex- 
tends. Look further at the concentration of all this in 
the Kremlin. In that fortress, surrounded by its 
crusted towers and battlemented walls, are united all 
the elements of the ancient religious life of Russia. 
Side by side stand the three cathedrals of the mar- 
riages, coronations, and funerals of the Czars. Hard 
by are the two convents, half palatial, half episcopal. 
Overhanging all is the double, triple, palace of Czar 
and Patriarch. Within that palace is a labyrinth of 
fourteen chapels, multiplied by sovereign after sove- 
reign, till the palace is more like the dwelling-place 
of the Pope than of the Emperor : whilst, still true 
to the well-known saying which I have quoted before, 
the Tartar-like building in which these chapels are 
embedded, itself crabbed, ribbed, low-browed, painted 
within and without in the old barbaric grotesqueness 
of mediaeval Russia, is encased with the external 
magnificence of modern civilisation and European 
grandeur. 

Within these walls, for the most part, lies the scene 
of that portion of history on which we now enter, be- 
ginning with the foundation of Moscow, and termi- 
nating with the accession of the Romanoff dynasty. 

1 Moscow, after the fall of Constantinople, was regarded by the 
Eastern Church as " a new Rome," even in the sense of " a new 
Constantinople." " The new Rome which is Moscow." Macarius's 
Travels, i. 325, ii. 57. 



378 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



The first coincides in time with what in Europe may 
be called the beginning of the second portion of the 
middle ages, after the close of the great struggle 
between the Popes and Emperors. The second coin- 
cides with the subsidence of the struggles of the 
European Reformation in the Peace of Westphalia. 

In the gradual consolidation of the Church of 
Russia, which took place during this period, there 
concurred three leading institutions and two leading 
events. These correspond to analogous institutions 
and events in mediaeval Europe, and thus convey 
similar instruction, but varied by the peculiar dif- 
ferences of East and West. 

I. Leaving the continuous narrative to be read in 
the characteristic and forcible history of Andrew Mou- 
ravieff l , I will confine myself to the salient points. 
The Czar. First is the Czar. In the West, as well as in the 
East, the framework of all religious and civil insti- 
tutions was moulded on the idea of a Holy Roman 
Empire succeeding to the Pagan Roman Empire of 
former times. But in the West this institution as 
signally failed as in the East it has signally succeeded. 
Charlemagne was a much greater man than any of 
the Russian potentates before the time of Peter. His 
coronation by Leo was a much more striking corona- 
tion than any that has fallen to the lot even of the 
greatest Russian Emperors. The theory of his Em- 
pire was defended by Dante with far more genius 
and zeal than ever was the theory of the White Czar, 
by any poet or philosopher of Russia. But, never- 

1 I must also express my personal obligations to the Author. 



Lect. X. Its Mediaeval Institutions. 



379 



theless, the Holy Roman Empire lias faded away, 
whilst "the new Caesar of the Empire of Orthodoxy" 1 
still stands. In part this difference is owing to the 
fundamental diversity of the Eastern and Western 
characters. In part, however, it was fostered by the 
peculiar circumstances of the Russian history, and 
obtained an importance in the Russian Church and 
Empire beyond what may be ascribed to the same 
tendency in other regions of the East. The very 
slowness of the growth of the institution indicates 
the depth of its roots in the national character and 
history. The transformation of the Grand-Princes of 
Kieff, Vladimir, and Novgorod into the Czar of Mus- 
covy, and of the Czar of Muscovy into the Emperor 
of all the Russias, was not the work of a day or a 
century; it was the necessity of the long- sustained 
wars with Tartars, Poles, and Swedes; it was the 
craving for union amongst the several Princes : it was 
the inheritance of the ceremonial of the Byzantine 
Empire, through the intermarriage of Ivan III. with 
the daughter of the last Palasologus; it was the 
earnest desire for peace under one head, after the long 
wars of the Pretenders ; it was the homogeneousness 
of the vast Empire, uniting itself under one common 
ruler. The political position of the Czar or Emperor 
is not within our province, but his religious or eccle- 
siastical position transpires through the whole history 
of his Church. He is the father of the whole patri- 
archal community. The veneration for him was in 

1 So the Czar Alexis was formally addressed by the German 
Emperor. (Travels of Macarius, 770.) 



380 The Russian Church, Lect. X. 



the middle ages almost, it is said, as if he were Christ 1 
Himself. The line of Grecian Emperors, so it was 
said even by Orientals, had been stained with heresy 
and iconoclasm : never the line of the Orthodox Czars 
of Muscovy. 2 " He who blasphemes his Maker meets 
" with forgiveness amongst men, but he who reviles 
" the Emperor is sure to lose his head." 3 " God and 
"the Prince will it, God and the Prince know it," 4 
were the two arguments, moral and intellectual, against 
which there was no appeal. " So live your Imperial 
" Majesty, here is my head;" "I have seen the laugh- 
" ing eyes of the Czar : " these were the usual ex- 
pressions of loyalty. 5 He was the keeper of the 
The Coro- keys and the body-servant of God. 6 His coronation, 
even at the present time, is not a mere ceremony, but 
a historical event and solemn consecration. It is 
preceded by fasting and seclusion, and takes place 
in the most sacred church in Russia; the Emperor, 
not as in the corresponding forms of European inves- 
titure a passive recipient, but liimself the principal 
figure in the whole scene ; himself reciting aloud the 
confession of the Orthodox faith ; himself alone on his 
knees, amidst the assembled multitude, offering up the 
prayer of intercession for the Empire ; himself placing 
his own crown with his own hands on Ms own head; 
himself entering through the sacred doors of the in- 
nermost sanctuary, and taking from the altar the 
elements of the bread and wine, of which then and 
there, in virtue of his consecration, he communicates 

1 Macarius, i. 401. 2 Ibid. ii. 45. 

3 Ibid. ii. 73. 4 Strahl, ii. 65. 

5 Tracts on Muscovite Religion, 37. 6 Ibid. 38. 



Lect. X. 



Its Mediaeval Institutions. 



381 



with bishops, priests, and deacons. In every con- 
siderable church is placed a throne in front of the 
altar, as if in constant expectation of the sudden ap- 
parition of the Sovereign. In every meeting, council, 
or college, is placed the sacred triangular "mirror," 
" the mirror of conscience," as it is called, which re- 
presents the Imperial presence, and solemnises, as if 
by an actual consecration, the business to be trans- 
acted. 

In the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, within The Cathe- 
the Kremlin, lie, each in his place, their coffins ranged Archangel! 
around the wall, the long succession of Czars, from 
the Founder of Moscow to the predecessor of the 
Founder of Petersburg. Kound the walls, above 
each coffin, are the figures painted in long white 
robes, each with a glory round his head, not the glory 
of saintly canonisation 1 , but of that Imperial canonisa- 
tion of which I have just spoken. Twice a year a 
funeral service is performed for the sins of all of them. 
Of all those who there lie buried, under " that 
u burden of sins," — so the service solemnly expresses 
it, — " voluntary or involuntary, known to them- 
" selves or unknown," — none more strangely and 
significantly indicates the mixed character of the 
Russian Czar, or the hold which the office had ac- 
quired on the people, than he who, as the first 
crowned and anointed Czar of Muscovy, lies next the 
altar, in the most sacred place, Ivan or John IV., 
surnamed "the Terrible." 

Without dwelling on the details of his life, his 

1 Although it was taken for such by the Syrian travellers. 
Macarius, ii. 44. 



382 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



Ivan the history will serve the purpose of presenting to us some 
a.d. 1533 peculiarities of this aspect of the Eussian Church. 

His career has a dramatic interest of its own, un- 
like that of most of the great tyrants of the world. 
From a youth of barbarous profligacy he was re- 
claimed suddenly, and as it would seem entirely, by 
the joint efforts of his wife Anastasia, of the monk 
Sylvester, and of the noble, Adasheff. For thirteen 
years under their influence he led not only a pure 
and good life, but a career of brilliant success long 
unknown in the Russian annals. " It was as if a 
" cloud which had before concealed Russia from the 
" eyes of Europe was suddenly drawn asunder, and 
" revealed to them at the moment of their greatest 
" need, against the aggressive power of the Ottoman 
" Empire, a young Christian hero at the head of a 
" great empire, to be the vanguard and support of 
" Christendom." 1 But this was only transient. At 
the end of thirteen years these good influences were 
partly withdrawn and partly crushed. He returned 
once more to far worse than his youthful crimes ; in- 
sanity blended itself with furious passion, and, although 
sparks of religion still remained, at times bursting 
forth into fervent devotion, although noble schemes 
of civilisation floated before his mind always, and 
kept his name in sight before the Western world, 
yet, if we may believe half the crimes laid to his 
charge, he stands unrivalled, at least amongst Chris- 
tian sovereigns, in his preeminence of wickedness. 
He is the first Russian Prince who comes into • direct 



1 Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 48. 



Lect. X. 



Its Mediaeval Institutions. 



383 



contact with the West. 1 He corresponded with and 
courted our own Elizabeth. 2 It is interesting to re- 
flect that probably he was the first great political per- 
sonage who claimed and who received the promise of 
the right of asylum in England, in case of a revolution 
in his own country; and also that to this communi- 
cation we owe the first distinct description of Russian 
life and religion by an Englishman, in the journal of 
Sir Jerome Horsey, employed as messenger between 
Ivan and Elizabeth. There is something almost Shak- 
spearian in the delineation which Horsey gives of the 
last time he saw the tremendous Emperor : — 

" God would not leave this cruelty and barbarism un- a .d. 1584. 
punished. Not long after, he, the Emperor, fell out in rage 
with his eldest son Charrowich [the Czarovitch] Ivan for 
having some commiseration of these distressed poor Chris- 
tians ; and but for commanding an officer to give a gentleman 
a warrant for 5 or 6 post-horses, sent in his affairs, without 
the king's leave, and some other jealousy of greatness and too 
good opinion of the people as he thought, strake him in his 
fury a box on the ear or thrust at him with his piked staff ; 
who took it so tenderly, fell into a burning fever, and died 
within three days after. Whereat the Emperor tore his hair 
and beard like a mad man, lamenting and mourning for the 
loss of his son. (But the kingdom had the greatest loss, the 
hope of their comfort, a wise, mild, and most worthy prince, 
of heroical condition, of comely presence, twenty-three years 
of age, beloved and lamented of all men: was buried in 
Michaela Sweat [S. Michael] Archangel church, with jewels, 
precious stones and apparel, put into his tomb with his corpse, ' 

1 It is not improbable that from him are drawn Hooker's almost 
contemporaneous descriptions of a prosperous but wicked poten- 
tate, delighting in the awe which he inspires, and in the thought 
that " the enormity of his crimes is above all reach of law." 
Sermon on Pride (vol. iii. pt. ii. pp. 753, 754, 787). 

2 Collins, 47. 



3^4 



The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



A.D. 1584. worth 50 thousand pounds, watched by twelve citizens every 
night by change, dedicated unto his saint J ohn and Michael 
Archangel, to keep both body and treasure.) 1 

# * * . * #-* * 

" The old Emperor was carried every day in his chair into 
his treasury. One day he beckoned to me to follow. I 
stood among the rest venturously, and heard him call for 
some precious stones and jewels. Told the Prince and nobles 
present before and about him the vertue of such and such, 
which I observed, and do pray I may a little digress to de- 
clare for my own memory's sake. 

" 6 The load-stone,' he said, e you all know hath great and 
hidden vertue, without which the seas that compass the 
world are not navigable, nor the bounds nor circle of the 
earth cannot be known. Mahomet, the Persian's Prophet, 
his tomb of steel hangs in their Rapatta at Darbent most 
miraculously.' 

" Caused the waiters to bring a chain of needles touched 
by this load-stone, hanged all one by the other. 6 This fair 
coral and this fair turcas you see ; take in your hand ; of 
his nature are orient colours ; put them on my hand and 
arm. I am poisoned with disease: you see they shew 
their vertue by the change of their pure colour into pale : 
declares my death. Reach out my staff royal ; an unicorn's 
horn garnished with very fair diamonds, rubies, sapphires, 
emeralds and other precious stones that are rich in value ; 
cost 70 thousand marks sterling of David Gower, from 
the fowlkers of Ousborghe. 2 Seek out for some spiders.' 

te Caused his physician, Johannes Lloff, to scrape a circle 
thereof upon the table ; put within it one spider and so one 
other and died, and some other without that ran alive apace 
from it. 6 It is too late, it will not preserve me. Behold 
these precious stones. This diamond is the orient's richest 
and most precious of all other. I never affected it ; it re- 
strains fury and luxury, [gives ?] abstinence and chastity ; 
the least parcel of it in powder will poison a horse given to 

1 Travels of Horsey, 178, 199. 

2 Qu. " the Fuggers [the great merchant family] of Augsburg." 



Lect. X. 



Ivan the Terrible. 



385 



drink, much more a man.' Points at the ruby. f O ! this 
is most comfortable to the heart, brain, vigour and memory 
of man, clarifies congealed and corrupt blood.' Then at the 
emerald. e The nature of the rainbow ; this precious stone 
is an enemy to uncleanness. The sapphire I greatly delight 
in; it preserves and increaseth courage, joys the heart, 
pleasing to all the vital senses, precious and very sovereign 
for the eyes, clears the sight, takes away blood-shot, and 
strengthens the muscles and strings thereof.' Then takes 
the onyx in hand. { All these are God's wonderful gifts, 
secrets in nature, and yet reveals them to man's use and 
contemplation, as friends to grace and virtue and enemies 
to vice. I faint, carry me away till another time.' 

" In the afternoon peruseth over his will and yet thinks 
not to die : he hath been bewitched in that place, and often 
times un witched again; but now the devil fails. Com- 
mands the master of his apotheke and physicians to prepare 
and attend for his solace and bathing ; looks for the goodness 
of the sign ; sends his favourite to his witches again to know 
their calculations. He comes and tells them the Emperor 
will bury or burn them all quick for their false illusions 
and lies. The day is come ; he is as heart whole as ever he 
was. 6 Sir, be not so wrathful. You know the day is 
come and ends with the setting of the sun.' He hastes him 
to the Emperor: made great preparation for the bath. 
About the third hour of the day the Emperor went into 
it, solaced himself and made merry with pleasant songs as 
he useth to do : came out about the seventh hour well re- 
freshed; brought forth; sets him down upon his bed; 
calls Rodovone Boerken, a gentleman whom he favoured, to 
bring the chess-board. He sets his men; all saving the 
king, which by no means he could not make stand in his 
place with the rest upon the plain board ; his chief favourite 
and Boris Fedorowich Goddorove and others about him. 
The Emperor in his loose gown, shirt and linen hose, faints 
and falls backward. Great outcry and stir; one sent for 
aqua vitas, another to the apotheke for e marigold and ' rose 
water, and to call ( his ghostly father and ' the physicians. In 
the mean time he was strangled and stark dead." 

VOL. I. C C 



3 86 



The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



a d. 1533 Out of the history of this wild monster two points 
may be specially dwelt upon as illustrating the position 
of the Russian religion. 
Union of First, his union of frantic excesses of wickedness 
am? w C iS> with apparently sincere bursts of religious feeling 
edness * renders him, perhaps, the most remarkable instance 
which history furnishes of the combination of a total 
disregard of all the moral precepts of religion with at 
least an occasional observance of its ceremonial and 
devotional duties. Antinomianism is the reproach of 
the lower and coarser forms of the Protestant Church. 
Louis XI. is a standing disgrace to the Roman 
Church. But these instances are exceeded, both in 
the depth of their wickedness and the fervour of 
their zeal, by Ivan the Terrible. A single passage 
out of many will suffice. He retired sometimes for 
weeks together to a monastery which he had built for 
himself near Moscow. He rang the bell for matins 
himself at three in the morning. During the services, „ 
which lasted seven hours, he read, chanted, and 
prayed with such fervour that the marks of his pros- 
trations remained on his forehead. At dinner, whilst 
his attendants sat like mutes, he read books of reli- 
gious instruction. In the intervals he went to the 
dungeons under the monastery to see with his own 
eyes his prisoners tortured, and always returned, it 
was observed, with a face beaming with delight. 1 

If it be true that the Oriental forms of Christianity 
are more exposed than others to this danger of 
uniting the form of godliness with the mystery of 
iniquity, then the history of Ivan is a warning which 
1 Karamsin, ix. 308. 



Lect. X. 



Ivan the Terrible. 



387 



should never be absent from the mind of any ad- 
herent or of any admirer of the Eastern Church. 
His life is a lesson to the members of every Church ; 
but to the Church of Russia a lesson of peculiar sig- 
nificance. 

But, moreover, terrible, loathsome, widespread as influence 
were his crimes and cruelties, he reigned not only 
without personal danger, but almost, it may be said, 
with personal popularity. When he offered to abdi- 
cate, when he drove off from the Kremlin in his 
sledges to his retreat at AlexandrofF, the people were in 
despair. What would have seemed to us a deliverance 
beyond all hope, seemed to them a calamity beyond 
all endurance. They could not live without a Czar; 
and when, as a Czar, he returned, to mangle, torture, 
and dishonour his subjects, he died, not by the hand 
of any assassin, but in the agonies of his own remorse. 
In foreigners, even then, he excited dread and indig- 
nation; and the English merchant describes how he 
" was sumptuously entombed in the Archangel church, 
" where he, though guarded day and night, remains a 
" fearful spectacle to the memory of such as pass by, or 
" hear his name spoken of, who were entreated to cross 
u and bless themselves for his resurrection again." 
But this feeling was one, with his own countrymen, 
not of unmingled horror. The epithet which we 
render " Terrible," in the original expresses rather the 
idea of " Awful," the feeling with which the Athenians 
would have regarded, not Periander or Dionysius, but 
the Eumenides. His memory still lives amongst the 
peasants as of one who was a Czar indeed. The stories 
of his nailing the hat of the ambassador to his head, 

cc 2 



388 The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



The Metro- 
politan of 
Moscow. 



A.D. 1325. 



The Patri- 
archal 
Cathedral. 



and of his driving his huge iron walking-staff through 
the foot of one whose attention he wished to secure, 
are regarded rather as the playful condescension of 
some great Leviathan, than as the unfeeling cruelties 
of a wicked prince. 1 

II. The Czar was the first person in the Church, 
the Metropolitan of Russia was the second. The holy 
city of Kieff was, as we have seen, the earliest seat of 
the Russian Primacy. This was the traditional scene 
of S. Andrew's preaching, the actual scene of Vladi- 
mir's first proclamation of the Gospel. But the ulti- 
mate and permanent seat of the Russian Primates 
was Moscow, which was in fact their creation. When 
the Grand-Prince Ivan I. was doubtfully establishing 
his habitation on the Kremlin hill, his determination 
was fixed and steadied by the counsel of Peter the Me- 
tropolitan. " If thou wilt comfort my old age, if thou 
" wilt build here a temple worthy of the Mother of 
" God, thou shalt then be more glorious than all the 
" other Princes, and thy posterity shall become great. 
" My bones shall remain in this city; prelates shall 
u rejoice to dwell in it; and the hands of its princes 
" shall be on the neck of our enemies." 2 

The heart of Moscow is the Kremlin, and the heart of 
the Kremlin is the Patriarchal Cathedral, the Church 
of the Assumption or Repose of the Virgin. It is, in 
dimensions, what in the West would be called a 
chapel rather than a cathedral. But it is so filled 
with recollections, so teeming with worshippers, so 



1 I heard of these stories myself, but thej are also given in 
Collins, 45. 

2 Mouravieff, 54. 



Lect. X. The Metropolitan. 



389 



bursting with tombs and pictures, from the pave- 
ment up to the cupola, that its smallness of space is 
forgotten in the fullness of its contents. On the 
platform of its nave, from Ivan the Terrible down- 
wards to this day, the Czars have been crowned. 
Along its altar screen are deposited the most sacred 
pictures of Russia : that, painted by the Metropolitan 
Peter ; this, sent by the Greek Emperor Manuel ; that, 
brought by Yladimir from Kherson. High in the 
cupola is the chapel, where, as at the summit of the 
Russian Church, the Russian Primates were elected. 
In the depth of the throne, behind the altar, is the 
sacred picture which commemorates the original rock 
of KiefT, whence the see of Moscow was hewn. Round 
the walls are buried the Primates of the Church ; at 
the four corners, here as in all Oriental buildings 
the place of honour, lie those most highly venerated. 

I have already indicated the gradual changes in General 
the title and jurisdiction of the Metropolitans and ofthe 
Primates, through which the Russian Church was tans!^ 011 ' 
rendered independent of Constantinople. But those 
external changes affected very slightly the character 
and bearing of those who filled the see. An almost 
uniform spirit breathes through them all. Hard by, 
in the neighbouring convent, lies one of the earliest 
and most famous, Alexis the Wonder-worker, whose 
grave is still visited by every sovereign on his en- 
trance into Moscow. " Whose tomb is this?" asked 
Davoust, in the French occupation; and on being 
told, he replied, " Let the old man rest." What the 
French general thus expressed on the impulse of the 
moment is the feeling with which history may re- 

c c 3 



39° 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



gard, with one or two exceptions to be hereafter 
noticed, the whole series of these ancient prelates. 
" Let the old men rest." They were mostly blameless 
and venerable men ; some had not unimportant parts 
to play in the leading events of Russian history. The 
personal veneration shown to them, as still to their 
successors, probably exceeded the respect attaching 
to ecclesiastics of the West. When the present aged 
Metropolitan of Moscow leaves the cathedral, it is 
with difficulty that he can struggle through the 
crowd, who, were he of pure gold and did every 
touch carry away a particle, could hardly press more 
eagerly to devour his hand with kisses, or lay a 
finger on the hem of his garment. And when he 
drives away in his state carriage, drawn by six black 
horses, every one stands bareheaded in the street as 
he passes, and the bells of the innumerable churches 
and chapels of Moscow, as the carriage rolls by, join in 
an ever increasing river of sound, tributary streams 
of all dimensions, from the tinkling of a brook to the 
roaring of a cataract, falling in and telling the course 
of his route long after he is out of sight. 

But neither the grandeur of the office, nor the en- 
thusiasm of the people, has ever raised the Primates 
of Russia to a level of political importance, I will 
not say with the Popes, but even with the prelates 
of Europe. They have always been the supporters, 
not the rivals, of the throne. There has been no Hilde- 
brand, no Becket, no Anselm amongst them. Of the 
four who rest in the four corners of the cathedral, 
Peter, the first Metropolitan, has the honour of being 
the co-founder of Moscow with the first Ivan ; Jonah 



Lect. X. The Metropolitan. 391 



was the prelate who made the see independent of 
Constantinople; Hermogenes died a victim to the 
Polish invaders; Philip alone came into collision with s. Philip, 
the Imperial power, and that was expressly and dis- 
tinctly with the personal cruelties, not with the 
secular authority, of Ivan the Terrible. " As the a.d. 15 68. 
" image of the Divinity, I reverence thee; as a man, 
" thou art but dust and ashes." It is a true glory 
of the Russian Church, and an example to the hier- 
archy of all churches, that its one martyred prelate 
should have suffered, not for any high ecclesiastical 
pretensions, but in the simple cause of justice and 
mercy. u Silence," he said, as he rebuked the Czar, 
" lays sin upon the soul, and brings death to the 
M whole people. . . I am a stranger and a pilgrim 
" upon earth, as all my fathers were, and I am ready 
" to suffer for the truth. Where would my faith be 
" if I kept silence? . . Here we are offering up the 
" bloodless sacrifice to the Lord; while behind the 
" altar flows the innocent blood of Christian men." 
As he was dragged away from the cathedral his one 
word was " Pray." As he received his executioners 
in the narrow cell of his prison in the convent of 
Twer, his one word was " Perform thy mission." 1 
That narrow cell, now locked up and almost forgotten, 
is more truly deserving the name of " the Martyrdom " 
than the spot where our English primate fell, with 
more spirit, but not with more courage, and certainly 
not with a better cause, nor with more meekness or 
charity. The death of Philip of Moscow, however 
obscure in ecclesiastical annals, is at least valuable as 

1 Mouravieff, 176, 177, 179. 
c c 4 



39 2 



The Russian Church. Lect. x. 



a proof that in order to secure a protest against the 
lust and cruelty of sovereigns, it is not necessary to 
have a perpetual irritation between the powers of 
Church and State. One such prelate occurs in the 
Russian history, and he more in appearance than in 
fact. But he, the Patriarch Nicon, lies far away 
from his predecessors at Moscow, and beyond the 
limits of the mediaeval age, of which we are now 
speaking. 

Monastic HI. I pass to the third ecclesiastical power in 
the Russian commonwealth — the Monastic orders. 
Here as I have observed on a former occasion 1 , we 
must dismiss from our minds all the Western ideas 
of beneficence, learning, preaching, such as we ascribe 
to the Benedictines, Franciscans, or Dominicans ; of 
state-craft, energy, and policy, such as we ascribe to 
the Jesuits. These developments of the system are, 
according to the view of the Orthodox Church of the 
East, an infringement of the contemplative ascetic 
character of the anchorets and coenobites of antiquity. 
In the dark forests of Muscovy, in the frozen waters 
of Archangel, is carried out the same rigid system, 
at least in outward form, that was born and nurtured 
in the burning desert of the Thebaid. 

But, nevertheless, they have not been without their 
influence ; an influence very similar to that which was 
exercised by their spiritual ancestors, the ascetics of 
Egypt. 

There is no variety of monastic orders in Russia. 
The one name of the Black Clergy is applied to all 



Lecture I. p. 30. 



Lect. X. 



The Hermits. 



393 



alike. The one rule of S. Basil governs them all. 
But, for convenience, they may be divided into two 
classes : the Hermits and the Monks. 

1. Even at the present day the influence of a The 
hermit in Russia is beyond what it is in any other 
part of the world. Only a short time since died an 
anchoret, who, for twenty years had lived in abso- 
lute solitude, except when he came out once a year to 
receive the Eucharist on Easter-day, and who yet, at 
the end of that time, was consulted in the belief of his 
practical sagacity far and wide through the Empire. 
" It was as if by the concentration of his will he had 
" acquired a kind of magnetic power " — so it was 
described to me by one who had heard much of him 
— u over all who came within his reach." In earlier 
times this sanctity had acquired a still stronger hold. 
Anthony and Theodosius in the caves of KieiF were 
the direct imitators of Anthony and Hilarion in Egypt, 
and their dried skeletons still attract pilgrims from the 
utmost bounds of Kamtschatka. The pillar hermits, 
imitators of Simeon Stylites, never reached the West, 
but were to be found in the heart of Russia. 1 But 
there was a further and a more noble function which 
these wild hermits exercised. Let me describe them 
as they appeared to English travellers of the sixteenth 
century. 2 " There are certain eremites, who use to go 
u stark naked, save a clout about their middle, with 
" their hair hanging long and wildly about their shoul- 
" ders, and many of them with an iron collar or chain 
u about their necks or middles even in the very ex-, 

1 Nicetas, at Peryaslav. Strahl, 138; a.d. 1086. 

2 Fletcher, Russian Commonwealth, 117. 



394 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



a.d.1588 " tremity of winter. These the y take as prophets and 
" men of great holiness, giving them a liberty to speak 
" what they list without any controlment, though it be 
" of the very highest himself. So that if he reprove 
" any openly, in what sort soever, they answer nothing, 
u but that it is Po Grecum, L for their sins. 1 And if 
" any of them take some piece of sale ware from any 
" man's shop as he passeth by, to give where he list, 
" he thinketh himself much beloved of God, and 
" much beholden to the holy man for taking it in 
" that sort. The people liketh very well of them, 
" because they are as pasquils [pasquins] to note 
u their great men's faults, that no man else dare 
" speak of. Yet it falleth out sometimes that for 
" this rude liberty which they take upon them, after 
" a counterfeit manner by imitation of prophets, they 
" are made away in secret; as was one or two of 
" them in the late Emperor's time for being overbold 
" in speaking against his government. ... Of this 
" kind there are not many, because it is a very hard 
" and cold profession to go naked in Russia, espe- 
" cially in winter." 

Of those thus described iSiree may be selected : — 
" There is one at this time that walketh naked 
" about the streets of Moscow, and inveigheth com- 
" monly against the state and government, especially 
" against the Godonoffs." [That is, the high family 
who at that time were "thought to be oppressors of 
" the commonwealth," and of whom the chief has 
ever since by the popular voice, of which this hermit 
was the powerful mouthpiece, been condemned as the 
author of the serfdom of the Russian peasantry.] 



Lect. X. 



The Hermits. 



395 



" Another there was, one whom they called Basil, Basil of 
u that would take upon him to reprove the old Em- Moscow ' 
" peror [the terrible Ivan] for all his cruelty and 
" oppression done towards the people. His body they 
" have translated into a sumptuous church near the 
" Emperor's house in Moscow, and have canonised 
" him for a saint." That sumptuous church remains, 
a monument of the mad hermit. It is the cathedral 
immediately outside the Kremlin walls, well termed 
" the dream of a diseased imagination." It was built a.d. 1544. 
according to the barbarous caprice of Ivan IV. to com- 
memorate his conquest of Kazan. Hundreds of artists 
were kidnapped from Lubeck to erect it, pagoda on 
pagoda, cupola on cupola, staircase upon staircase, 
pinnacle on pinnacle, — red, blue, green, and gold ; 
chapel within chapel, altar above altar, to see how 
many could be congregated under a single roof. 
Day by day, it is said, he sat in the small belfry tower 
on the Kremlin walls, to watch its completion ; and, 
when it was completed, put out the eyes of the archi- 
tect, that no finer work might ever be executed. Yet 
in this favourite church of a worse than Ahab was 
interred, as though he and his people were uncon- 
scious of any inconsistency, the body of one who 
was dreaded by him, and revered by the people, 
almost as a second Elijah. He lies in the most costly 
of the many chapels; his iron chains and collar hang 
over his bones, and his name, " S. Basil," has super- 
seded the earlier title which the Czar had given it, 
" the Protection of Our Lady," in allusion to the con- 
quest of Kazan which it commemorated. Of all the 
buildings in Moscow it makes the deepest impression ; 



39^ 



The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



it stands alone, as a fitting monument of the mad 
Czar and of his mad reprover. 
Nicolas of Another, who lived at the same time, Nicolas of 
a.d. 1570. PskofF or Plescow, is thus described by Horsey, who 
had himself seen him. " I saw this impostor or 
" magician, a foul creature, went naked both in 
" winter and summer : he endured both extreme 
" heat and frost; did many things through the 
" magical illusions of the devil ; much followed, 
" praised and renowned both by prince and people. 
" He did much good " 1 when Ivan came to his 
native town of Plescow, with the savage intention of 
massacring the whole population there, as he had 
already done at Novgorod. It was the early morn- 
ing as the Czar approached the town. The bells of 
the churches 2 — those voices of Eussian religion — 
were sounding for matins, and for a moment his hard 
heart was melted, and his religious feeling was stirred. 
The hut of the hermit was close by : Ivan saluted 
him and sent him a present. The holy man, in 
return, sent him a piece of raw flesh. It was during 
* the great fast of Lent 3 , and Ivan expressed his sur- 
prise at such a breach of the rules of the Church. 
" Evasko, Evasko," 4 that is, " Jack, Jack," — so with 
his accustomed rudeness the hermit addressed his ter- 
rible sovereign, — " thinkest thou that it is unlawful 
" to eat a piece of beast's flesh in Lent, and not un- 
" lawful to eat up so much man's flesh as thou hast 
" already? " At the same time he pointed to a dark 
thunder cloud over their heads, and threatened the 



1 Horsey, 161. 2 Fletcher, 118. 3 Mouravieff, 119. 

4 Fletcher, 118. s Karamsin, ix. 635. 



Lect. X. The Monasteries. 



Czar with instant destrnction by it, if he or any of 
his army touched a hair of the least child's head in 
that city, which God by his good angel did preserve 
for better purpose than his rapine. 1 Ivan trembled 
and retired 2 , and Plescow was saved. 

I have given these instances, because they explain 
the reverence of the people for the memory of those 
rough messengers of unwelcome truth. They are also 
characteristic of the truly Oriental aspect of the 
Russian Church. A Dervish 3 in Arabia or India is 
the lowest type of the same phenomenon ; the Prophets 
of the Jewish people are its highest type, not unfitly 
illustrated by these its later representatives. They 
ought also to be borne in mind to correct a too severe 
judgment of the ceremonial character of the Russian 
faith. No Prophet of old, no Reformer of modern 
times, could have delivered a more striking testimony 
in behalf of the true moral character of Christianity, 
than the wild hermit with his raw flesh in Lent. 

2. I pass to the Monasteries. Mostly they sprang The Mo- 
out of the neighbourhood of hermitages, like their nastenes - 
Egyptian prototypes ; but they too gradually acquired 
a peculiar mission in the Russian history — a mission 
disclosed in their outward aspect and situation. We 
look round from the walls of the Kremlin over the 
city of Moscow. What are the landmarks which 

1 Horsey, 16 J, 162. 

2 One account says that he still persisted in ordering the great 
bell of the church of the Holy Trinity to be moved ; but that his 
best horse fell, according to the warning of Nicolas, and that he 
then retired. Strahl's Geschichte, iii. 213. 

3 For an excellent description of the better and more prophet- 
like aspect of the Dervishes, see Wolff's Life, i. 477. 



398 The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



break the endless complication of domes and cupolas 
in every street and square ? The eye rests at once 
on the towers of vast monasteries which at regular in- 
tervals encircle the outskirts of the whole city, each en- 
compassed with its embattled walls, forming together 
a girdle of gigantic fortresses. Or we stand on the 
grass-grown walls of the great Novgorod ; the ancient 
city has shrunk into a mere village within their cir- 
cuit; and without, instead of the wide expanse of 
buildings which fill up the view of the later capital of 
Moscow, is now a desolate wilderness. Yet this one 
feature remains alike in both. At regular intervals, 
but here isolated and in deserted solitudes, the circle 
of monasteries — half sanctuaries, half fortresses — pre- 
serves the ribs of the huge skeleton from which the 
flesh of human habitation and cultivation has long 
since fallen away. This is the true aspect of the 
Russian monasteries. like the convent of Sinai, like 
the convents of Greece, they are the refuges of 
national life, or the monuments of victories won for 
an oppressed population against invaders and con- 
querors. 

Events of IV. This brings me to what I have called the two 
sian leading events of the mediaeval age of Russia, in 
Chinch. which the Russian Church played so conspicuous a 
part. 

Tartar 1. The first was the occupation of Russia for two 

centuries by the Mongol Tartars. The leading event 
of mediaeval Europe was, undoubtedly, the Crusades. 
In the Crusades Russia took no part. Its sepa- 
ration from them is one of its most important grounds 
of separation from the Western World. But in its 



invasion. 



Lect. X. 



The Tartar Invasion. 



399 



constant strnggle against the Mnssnlman Tartars of 
Northern Asia it had a Crusade of its own, far more 
close and severe, more disastrous in its duration, 
and proportionately more glorious in its close than 
the remote struggle of Europe with the Mussulman 
Turks and Arabs of Southern Asia. With the his- 
tory only of one Western country can the history of 
Russia be in this respect compared. In Spain, as 
well as in Russia, the effects, partly in similar partly 
in dissimilar forms, are most strongly impressed on the 
religious life of the nation. Civilisation and consoli- 
dation must have been greatly checked. But the in- 
tensity of devotional feeling, the close identification 
of the religious and the national life, must have been 
immeasurably deepened by this long struggle against 
foreign enemies of a different faith. 

The very name for a Russian peasant, Christianin 
(Christian), is a relic of the times when a Chris- 
tian was a distinctive term for a Russian. On the 
top of every Russian Church, in every town which 
was under the Tartar yoke 1 , the Cross is planted on 
a Crescent. To this is to be ascribed the strong anti- 
Mussulman feeling which animates the heart of every 
Russian peasant, and which, whether by nature or 
policy, is so powerful an engine in all the wars which 
have in later times been waged against Turkey. 

It is during this Tartar dominion that the clergy 
showed themselves the deliverers of their country. 
The post that is occupied in Europe by princes 
and warriors against the several oppressors of their 



1 King, Greek Church in Russia, 24. 



4oo 



The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



respective countries, is occupied in Russia against the 
Tartars, as in modern Greece against the Turks, by 
Founda- the Clergy and the Church. Of this fire of national 
Troitlfka 6 and religious independence the sacred hearth is to be 
^TsaZ' sought, not at Kieff or Moscow, but at a spot which 
from this singular union of associations has, down to 
the present day, remained the chief sanctuary of the 
Russian Church and nation — the Monastery of the 
Troitzka ("the Holy Trinity"), which was founded at 
this period ; the period marked, as in Europe at large 
so in Russia, by the pestilence of the Black Death 1 , 
and in the latter followed by the general establishment 
of convents, of which that of the Troitzka was chief. 
About sixty miles from Moscow, in the midst of the 
wild forest which covers all the uncultivated ground 
of the Russian soil, rises the immense pile of the 
ancient convent. Like the Kremlin, it combines the 
various institutions of monastery, university, palace, 
cathedral, churches, planted within a circuit of walls, 
which by their height and strength, and towers and 
trench, indicate that, over and above all these other 
elements of life, was superadded in a predominant 
degree that of a camp or fortress. 

Hither from all parts of the Empire stream innu- 
merable pilgrims. Every village along the road from 
Moscow is consecrated by some religious or historical 
association. No Emperor comes to Moscow without 
paying his devotions there. The terrible Ivan built 
at least half of its stately edifices. Peter, as we shall 

1 The chief year of the Black Death was 1348. It reached 
Russia in 1351. The Troitzka was founded in 1338; but its great 
increase, and its dependencies, date from 1360. Strahl, 163 — 165. 



Lect. X, The Troitzka Monastery. 401 

see, twice took refuge within its sacred walls. The 
wicked Catharine used to go thither from Moscow 
with all her court, on foot, by easy stages, live miles a 
day; with vessels of the water of the Neva always at 
hand to refresh her. On foot many of the nobles of 
the present day have made their first pilgrimage. 
1S0 presents are so welcome to their families on their 
return, as the memorials of sacred bread, or sacred re- 
lics, from "the Laura" or convent of the Holy Trinity. 
The office of Archimandrite, or Abbot, is so high that 
for many years it has never been given to any one but 
the Metropolitan of Moscow : and the actual chief, the 
Hegoumenos or Prior, is himself one of the highest 
dignitaries of Russia ; and lives in a style of magni- 
ficence, which is to our eyes rather like that of the 
heads of our grandest colleges, than of the ruler of a 
monastic establishment. " Whence do you derive 
"your support for all this state?" asked the Em- 
peror Nicholas of the present Prior. He answered 
nothing, but pointed to the chest which at that mo- 
ment, and at all hours of the day, was receiving the 
offerings of the long array of pilgrims, and which 
has contributed in no slight degree to the necessities 
of the Empire. 

Its present splendour stands but in remote con- 
nection with its simple beginning, to which we now 
return. In the treasury of the convent we still can 
trace back, by gradual stages, the gorgeous vestments 
glittering with " barbaric gold and pearls," to the rough 
sackcloth of the founder ; or the mass of wealth 
which each succeeding Czar has heaped upon the 
consecrated vessels, to the wooden chalice in which 

D D 



402 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



S. Sergius, 

A.D. 1315 

—1392; 

canonised 

1428. 



Battle of 
the Don, 
a.d. 1380. 



the first sacrament was there celebrated by Sergius of 
Eadonegl. We may be reminded of our profound ig- 
norance of those old Eastern worthies, and of the way 
in which history is often composed, by the fact that 
our common Western histories of Eussia pass by the 
whole period of the times of Sergius, without even 
an allusion to a name at least as dear to every 
Eussian heart, and as familiar among Eussian homes, 
as William Tell to a Swiss, or as Joan of Arc to a 
Frenchman. In the depth of these then impenetrable 
forests, with the bears for his companions, lived, in 
the fourteenth century, the holy hermit Sergius. 
Like the lives of Western saints of the same period, 
his career is encircled with a halo of legend. But 
there is no reason to doubt the fact, which still lives 
in a thousand memorials throughout his grateful 
country. When the heart of the Grand-Prince 
Demetrius 1 failed in his advance against the Tartars, 
it was the remonstrance, the blessing, the prayers of 
Sergius that supported him. to the field of battle on 
the Don, which gave him the cherished name of 
Demetrius of the Don. No historical picture or 
sculpture in Eussia is more frequent than that which 
represents the youthful warrior receiving the bene- 
diction of the aged hermit. Two of his monks, 
Peresvet and Osliab, accompanied the Prince to the 
field, and fought in coats of mail drawn over their 
monastic habit; and the battle was begun by the 



1 Demetrius himself was almost a saint; he went daily to 
church, and received the sacrament once a week in the great 
fasts, and wore a hair-cloth next his skin. Strahl, 171. At the 
battle he sang aloud the 46th Psalm. Karamsin, i. 81. 



Lect. X, 



The Troitzka Monastery. 



single combat of Peresvet with a gigantic Tartar, 
champion of the Mussulman host. 1 

The two chief convents in the suburbs of Moscow 
still preserve the recollection of that day. One is the 
vast fortress of the Donskoi 2 monastery, under the 
Sparrow Hills. The other is the SimonorT monastery, 
founded by the nephew of Sergius on the banks of the 
Mosqua, on a beautiful spot chosen by the saint him- 
self, and its earliest site was consecrated by the tomb 
which covers the bodies of his two warlike monks. 
From that day forth he stood out in the national recol- 
lections as the champion of Russia. It was still from 
his convent that the noblest patriotic inspirations 
were drawn, and, as he had led the way in giving the 
first great repulse to the Tartar power, so the final 
blow in like manner came from a successor in his 
place. When Ivan III. wavered, as Demetrius had 
wavered before him, it was by the remonstrance of 
Archbishop Bassian, formerly Prior of the Trinity 
Convent, that Ivan too was driven, almost against 
his will, to the field. "Dost thou fear death?" — 
so he was addressed by the aged prelate. " Thou too 
" must die as well as others ; death is the lot of all, 
" man, beast, and bird alike ; none avoid it. Give 
" these warriors into my hand, and, old as I am, I 
" will not spare myself, nor turn my back upon the 
"Tartars." 3 The Metropolitan, we are told, added 

1 Mouravieff, 62. 

2 It commemorated, not indeed the actual victory of the Don, 
but the gift of a sacred picture by the Kalmucks of the Don to 
Demetrius (Strahl, 168), which in later times went out against the 
Tartars of the Crimea. 

3 Mouravieff, 88. 



404 The Russian Church. Lect. X. 

his exhortations to those of Bassian. Ivan returned 
to the camp, the Khan of the Golden Horde fled 
without a blow, and Russia was set free for ever. 
The Polish 2. The invasion and expulsion of the Mongols 
a.d. 1605. form the first crisis of Russian history; the invasion 
and expulsion of the Poles form the second. We 
are so much accustomed to regard the Russians as 
the oppressors of the Poles, that we find it difficult 
to conceive a time when the Poles were the oppressors 
of the Russians. Our minds are so preoccupied with 
the Russian partition of Poland, that we almost refuse 
to believe in the fact that there was once a Polish par- 
tition of Russia. Yet so it was, and neither the civil 
nor the ecclesiastical history of Russia can be under- 
stood without bearing in mind that long family 
quarrel between the two great Sclavonic nations, to us 
so obscure, to them so ingrained, so inveterate, so in- 
telligible. Its political effects may be here dismissed. 
But its ecclesiastical effect was hardly less important 
than that produced by the wars with the Tartars. As 
the strong anti- Mussulman spirit of the nation was 
quickened by the one, so the strong anti-Popish spirit 
received a strong impulse from the other. Poland 
was to Russia the chief representative of the Latin 
Church ; Papal supremacy was in the national mind 
identified with the Polish conquest; and the war 
between the two nations became identified with a war 
between the two Churches. 1 The nations have now 

1 The following extracts from the Eastern travellers who 
visited Russia in the seventeenth century illustrate this feeling : — 

" And why do I pronounce the Poles accursed ? Because they 
have shown themselves more debased and wicked than the corrupt 



Lect. X. 



The Polish Invasion. 



changed places in their relative importance, bnt not 
more so than Spain and England since the days when 
onr own terror and hatred of Popery were inspired by 
the Spanish Armada. As the deliverance from the 
Spanish Armada to the Church and State of England, 
so was the deliverance from the Polish yoke to the 
Church and State of Kussia. It was the latter part 
of the seventeenth century that witnessed the crisis 
of the struggle. The dynasty of Euric came to an 
end in the death or the murder of the child Demetrius, 
last of the race. Pretender after pretender, false 
Demetrius succeeding to false Demetrius, occupied 
the Imperial throne, and the Polish Sigismund seized 
the opportunity of supporting the armies of the im- 

worshippers of idols, by their cruel conduct to Christians, thinking 
to abolish the very name of Orthodox. God perpetuate the em- 
pire of the Turks for ever and ever ! for they take their impost 
and enter into no account of religion, be their subjects Christians 
or Nazarenes, Jews or Samaritans : whereas these accursed Poles 
were not content with taxes and tithes from the brethren of 
Christ, though willing to serve them ; but, according to the true 
relation we shall afterwards give of their history, they subjected 
them to the authority of the enemies of Christ, the tyrannical 
Jews, who did not even permit them to build churches, nor leave 
them any priests that knew the mysteries of their faith ; but, on 
the contrary, violated their wives and daughters, if they at all 
appeared abroad in the public exercise of their religion. When 
the Almighty had seen their tyranny, he made them the laughing- 
stock of their enemies, and laid them low and contemptible, as we 
shall truly relate of them in the sequel, until he had taken ven- 
geance of their haughtiness." — Macarius, i. 165. 

" O you infidels ! O you monsters of impurity ! 0 you hearts 
of stone! What had the nuns and women done? What the 
girls and boys and infant children, that you should murder them ? 
If you had courage, you would have gone to fight with the 
venerable old man who has set you as a laughing-stock to the 
world, who has slain your princes and grandees, and annihilated 
your heroes and valiant men." — Ibid. i. 183. 

dd 3 



406 The Russian Church. Lect. X. 



postor. Moscow was in their hands, the Latin 
services were chanted in the Kremlin, organs were 
heard in the Patriarchal church 1 , anarchy spread 
through the country. 
Siege of Once again it was the Church that saved the 
Troitzka Empire, and the monastery of Sergius that saved them 
S^iensf' both. Hermogenes the Patriarch stood his ground 
for a time, but he was starved to death, imprisoned 
almost within his own cathedral. Philaret, Archbishop 
of RostofF, maintained the sinking spirit of the people, 
till he too was carried off into captivity. But now, 
when Czar and Patriarch had disappeared, when the 
holy city of Moscow itself was in the hands of stran- 
gers and heretics, the Trinity Convent still remained 
erect. Its fortifications, its moat, its towers, now 
served a noble purpose in resisting the long siege. 
Its warlike traditions revived in the persons of its 
soldier-like monks. As Demetrius of the Don had 
received his blessing from Sergius, so the true patriots 
of this second struggle, the peasant Minim and the 
Prince Bojarsky, received their mission (as we see 
again and again repeated in national monuments) from 
the successor of Sergius, the courageous Dionysius. 
The soul of the movement in the convent itself was 
the bursar of immortal memory, Abraham Palitzin. 
Rude pictures still represent, in strange confusion, 
the mixture of artillery and apparitions, fighting 
monks and fighting ghosts, which drove back the Polish 
assailants from the walls of the beleaguered fortress. 
The convent was for the time the whole empire, and 
its victory was the deliverance of Russia. Moscow 

1 Strahl, 223 ; a.d. 1605. 



Lect. X. 



The Polish Invasion. 



was retaken. In the town-honse of the Trinity 
monastery, still bearing the same name, the Prior 
presided at the Conncil which terminated the civil 
war, and the bursar Abraham announced its results 
to the assembled people. Of the religious aspect of 
that great deliverance many are the memorials which 
remain, standing monuments of the final overthrow 
of the Latin Church in Russia. Every one has heard 
of the Sacred Gate, the Redeemer's Gate, the chief The Sacred 
entrance to the Kremlin, through which no Russian, Gate " 
not even the Emperor himself, will presume, through 
which no stranger is allowed, to pass with his head 
covered. The practice dates from this epoch. The 
picture of the Redeemer which hangs over the gate, 
and invests it with this unequalled sanctity, is that 
which went before Bojarsky's army when he set forth 
at the bidding of Dionysius. Within the church of 
the Archangel, amidst the tombs of the Czars, the one 
canonised saint, the one coffin glittering with jewels 
and gold, is that of the young child Demetrius, whose The child 
death or martyrdom was lamented with an everlasting Demetrms - 
lamentation, as the cause of the convulsions which 
followed upon it. The very existence of the present 
Imperial dynasty is a living tribute to the services of 
the Russian hierarchy at the time of their country's 
greatest need. Now that the race of Ruric was passed 
away, and that the nobles had proved unequal to the 
conflict, the people looked to the clergy as the class 
from whose ranks they should take their future chief. 
Philaret, once a humble parish priest, then Archbishop 
of RostofF, afterwards Patriarch of Moscow, and his 
wife Martha, separated from her husband in the long 

D D 4 



408 



The Russian Church. 



Lect. X. 



wars, and secluded as a nun in the convent of 
Kostroma, were the parents of the future Czar. 
Election Michael Romanoff, son of Philaret, grandson of 
Romanoff. Roman, became the founder of the house of Romanoff, 
the ancestor of Peter and Alexander and Nicholas. 
So ended the period of the middle ages in Russia ; so 
was wrought out the deliverance of the Empire and 
the Church by the monastery of Sergius. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

| j- Invasion and dominion of Tartars. 



A.D. 

1205 
1472. 

1325. Foundation of the Church of Moscow. Peter, the first 
Metropolitan. 

1338. Foundation of the Troitzka Monastery by Sergius. 
1354. Alexis, Metropolitan. 

1380. Battle of the Don. Victory over the Tartars by Deme- 
trius Donsky. 
1395. Retreat of Tamerlane. 

1448 "| Jonah, first Metropolitan; independent of the see of Con- 
1461. J stantinople. 

1467. Marriage of Ivan III. with Sophia of Constantinople. 

Building of the Cathedral of Moscow. 
1472. Fall of Novgorod the Great. 

Victory of Ivan III. on the Oka. 

1533 Tlvan IV., or the Terrible. 
1584. J 

1568. Martyrdom of S. Philip. 
1587. Job, first Patriarch. 
1598. End of the race of Ruric. 

1598 j Boris Godonoff. 
1605. J 

1606 1 Wars of the Pretenders, and Invasion of the Poles. 
1613. J Siege of the Troitzka Convent. Expulsion of the Poles. 



Lect. XI. The Patriarch Nicon. 



409 



LECTURE XL 

THE PATEIAKCH NICON. 



The accessible materials for the Life of Nicon are : — 

1. " The Travels of Macarius in the 16 th century." 

Translated from the Arabic by the Oriental 
Translation Society (see p. 414). 

2. Bachmeister's " Life of Nicon." (German.) 

3. Hermann's (S History of Russia." (German.) 

4. Mouravieff 's S( History of the Russian Church," 

c. x — xiv. 

5. Palmer's " Dissertations on the Orthodox Commu- 

nion/' c. v. 

6. " Collins's Account of Russia." 1667—1678. 



There lias seldom been a more decisive epoch in the 
history of a nation than that which witnessed the 
succession of the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of 
Muscovy. A deep calm, like that which supervened 
on the Wars of the Roses in England, or on the Wars 
of the League in France, succeeded to the long 
struggle of the Wars of the Pretenders at the com- 
mencement of the seventeenth century in Russia. 
As elsewhere, so here, the fortunes of the Church and 
the nation were inseparable. The Czar Michael and 
the Patriarch Philaret ruled together, an event most 
characteristic of the people, and, as a Russian historian 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect XI. 



observes, " remarkable in the annals of the world, 
" which has in no country nor in any time been re- 
" peated, of a father as patriarch and his son as sove- 
" reign governing together the kingdom." The nation 
was freed from the Tartars and the Poles ; the Church 
was freed from the Mussulmans and the Latins ; their 
independent existence now, for the first time, gave 
hope for their free development. 
Eastern It is on this stage, thus newly created, that we have 
tion. to witness the parallel, such as it is, which Russian his- 
tory presents to the Western Reformation. That event 
is so thoroughly a part of our existence that we can 
hardly imagine a Church or a Christian nation in ex- 
istence which has not passed through it in some form 
or other. Such an exception, at first sight, seems to be 
found in Russia. Yet even this is not altogether an 
exception. It is a fact much to be observed, that 
the Church and the nation of all others in Europe 
the most tenacious of antiquity could not escape 
a Reformation entirely. 1 The nearest approach made 
in the Eastern Church to an adoption of the general 
Cyril doctrines of the Western Reformation was bv Cyril 

Lucar, # . 

a.d. 1613 Lucar, Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, and after- 
wards of Constantinople. 2 His whole life was a com- 
plicated struggle against the Jesuits of the Latin, 
and the hierarchy of the Greek, Church, and a 
yearning after the Protestant, chiefly the Calvinistic, 

1 For the Eastern view of the Reformation, see Macarius, 
i. 224. 

2 For Cyril Lucar, see a brief sketch in Dean Waddington's 
Greek Church, 173 ; and an elaborate, though unfavourable, ac- 
count in Neale's Alexandrian Church, ii. 356 — 454. 



Lect. XL Russian Reformation. 411 



theology of Geneva, Holland, and England. Abbot 
and Laud both encouraged his advances, and whilst 
his attempts in his own Church ended with his bar- 
barous murder at Constantinople, one monument of 
his intercourse with our Church still remains, in our 
possession of his precious gift of the " Alexandrian 
manuscript " of the Scriptures. 

In Russia the only direct attempt at a religious judaisers 
revolution was that made contemporaneously with ivan in. 
the Reformation, and possibly in connexion with 
it, -in the reign of Ivan III., when a secret but 
extensive sect of Judaisers took possession of some 
of the leading offices of Church and State, and at 
one time actually occupied the Patriarchal chair, and 
was totally suppressed by one of the few acts of 
violent persecution 1 which have stained the usual 
tolerance of the Eastern Church. A more serious Reforms of 
purpose of rectifying the abuses, at least of the out- Ivan IV * 
ward system of the Church, was conceived, and in 
part executed, by the awful Ivan, who, as if to make 
himself a warning to all Churches, Protestant as well 
as Papal, combined with his hideous crimes the cha- 
racter, not only, as we have sufficiently seen, of a 
religious ascetic, but also of a religious reformer. 
From his retreat at AlexandrofF he issued a denunci- 
ation of monastic abuses worthy of Luther or Henry 
VIII. , and Horsey describes the delight and pastime 
with which he brought out " seven rebellious big 
" fat friars, one after another, with a cross and beads in 
u one hand, and, through the Emperor's great favour, 

1 See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, 142 ; also a Russian 
historical romance called " The Heretic." 



412 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XL 



" a boar-spear in the other, to be exposed to a wild 
" boar, fierce and hungry, who caught and crushed 
" his victims, as a cat doth a mouse, tearing their 
" weeds in pieces till he came to the flesh, blood, 
" and bones, and so devoured them for a prey." 1 But 
Ivan was not the man to carry through a steady and 
deliberate plan. One only permanent work he left 
behind, no doubt of infinite importance in this di- 
rection, a printing-press at Moscow 2 ; and the first 
printed Russian volume, still preserved in the Im- 
perial Library at St. Petersburg, is the version* of 
the Acts of the Apostles dating from his reign. 

All these attempts were more or less isolated and 
abortive. It is not till the period on which we have 
now entered that the true work of the Russian Refor- 
mation begins. Two leading figures fix our atten- 
tion. The first, who guides us through the period of 
transition from the middle of the seventeenth century 
to the beginning of the eighteenth, is the Patriarch 
Nicon. The second, who will guide us through the 
period of completion, is the Emperor Peter. 

Our present concern is with the Patriarch Nicon. 
In naming his name we feel at once the immense dis- 
advantage of Eastern as compared with Western his- 
tory. How few of us have ever heard of him: how 
impenetrable even to those who have heard of him is 
the darkness of the original language in which his 
biography is wrapped up ! Yet he is unquestionably 
the greatest character in the annals of the Russian 
hierarchy ; and, even in the annals of the Eastern 



i Horsey, 178. 



2 Strahl,282. 



Lect. XL His Appearance and Character. 413 

hierarchy generally, there are but few who can be 
ranked before him as ecclesiastical statesmen. Pho- 
tius in the ninth century, and Chrysostom in the 
fourth, in some respects remind us of the career of 
Nicon. Indeed, the similarity may be fairly taken 
as a proof of the identity of spirit which breathed, at 
the interval of six centuries, through the two main 
branches of the Eastern Church. He was a Russian 
Chrysostom. He was also, in coarse and homely 
proportions, a Russian Luther and a Russian Wol- 
sey. But here the differences are far more palpable 
than those which divide him from the Patriarch of 
Constantinople. Through all the obscurity which 
hangs over him, there is yet discernible a genuine 
human character, combining with a willful barbaric 
obstinacy, as of an overgrown spoiled child, the 
caustic humour, the indefatigable energy of a states- 
man of the extremest West. In the series of por- 
traits professing to represent the hierarchy of ancient 
Russia, his is the first that imprints itself on our 
minds with the stamp of individual originality. In 
the various monasteries over which he presided, his 
grim countenance looks down upon us with blood- 
shot eyes, red complexion, and brows deeply knit. 
The vast length of his pontifical robes, preserved as 
relics of his magnificence, reveal to us the command- 
ing stature, no less than seven feet, which he shares 
with so many of his more distinguished country- 
men. And his story, if it could be told with the 
details, — many of which lie buried in the Russian 
archives, but some of which have been published and 
translated in well-known works, — is as full of dramatic 



414 The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 

complexity and pathetic interest, as was ever con- 
ceived in Timon of Athens or King Lear. 

I pass over the events of his early life. Born in 
the troubles of the wars of the Pretenders, raised 
from the ranks of the peasants to the successive dig- 
nities of Archimandrite of the Solovetzky monastery, 
and Metropolitan of the great Novgorod 1 , he finally 
was appointed to the Patriarchate of Moscow. In 
that high office he ruled the Church and State of 
Russia for six eventful years. 
Journal of One curious source of information we possess of 
Macarms. p er £ 0( ^ which I shall frequently quote. As in 

the reign of Ivan we had the advantage of the ob- 
servations of an English eye-witness from the West, 
so in the Patriarchate of Nicon we have the advantage 
of a Syrian eye-witness from the East. Macarius, 
Patriarch of Antioch, had travelled into Russia to 
collect money for his distant see, and was accom- 
panied by his Archdeacon Paul, who has left us a 
minute journal of all that occurred, having, as he says, 
" roused his languid mind to the task, and stretched 
" towards the object his recoiling pen." It is valuable 
as giving us the impressions of a Christian from the 
remote East on seeing the Church of Russia, and thus 
enabling us to estimate the difference between the 
two ; and yet more as giving us the impression pro- 
duced on the garrulous Archdeacon by the contrast 
between the shadowy Oriental prelates and the robust 
and vigorous character of the Patriarch of Moscow. 
Nicon, as I have said, was the first Russian re- 

1 He had first been a married parochial priest, but on the loss 
of his third child entered a convent. Levesque, iv. 65. 



Lect. XI. 



His Reforms. 



41s 



former. But we must not expect from this parallel 
a direct reformation of doctrine or of philosophy. 
Such a reformation has never taken place in any 
branch of the Eastern Church ; partly because it was 
less needed than in the West, partly because the 
whole character of the nations composing the Eastern 
Church has set in another direction. But still Nicon 
was, so far as we know, the first great Eastern eccle- 
siastic, with the single exception of Cyril Lucar, who 
saw that the time was come for giving life to the 
ceremonial observances, and a moral direction to the 
devotional feelings of Oriental worship. 

He set himself with stern severity and indomitable His re- 
courage to root out the various abuses of the Rus- foims * 
sian hierarchy, especially the one crying evil unfor- 
tunately not yet extinct — intemperance. To this 
day they remember, with a mixture of veneration and 
hatred, what they expressively call the "hedgehog 
hand " with which he kept them down. 

In his own person he exhibited a new type of pas- 
toral virtues. Of unbounded munificence, he founded 
hospitals and almshouses in his successive sees for 
orphans, widows, and aged persons. In the famine 
which devastated the city of Novgorod, he showed 
a generosity worthy of Carlo Borromeo at Milan, or 
of Francke at Halle. He visited the prisons x , if not 
with the philanthropy of a Howard, at least with a 
promptitude of justice rare in Eastern Christendom, 
" on his own personal examination releasing the 
" prisoners if he found them innocent." 2 

He broke through practices, both of Church and 



1 Levesque, iv. 68. 



2 Mouravieff ; 196. 



416 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XI. 



State, to which long custom had in Russia given an 
almost religious consecration. Through his interven- 
tion, the Oriental seclusion of the female sex was first 
infringed. At his injunction — still, it is true, fenced 
about by many precautions — the Empress, who had 
before never entered a church except under cover of 
night, now appeared publicly by day. Sacred pic- 
tures to which 1 , in his judgment, an idolatrous vene- 
ration was shown, were taken away. The baptisms 
of the Western Church, of which the validity is to 
this day denied by the Church of Constantinople, 
were by his sanction first recognised in the Church of 
Russia. It was 2 , indeed, granted only after a long 
and stormy discussion; and even then conceded only 
to the Latin Church. Still it was an immense ad- 
vance in charity, and was the first opening of a door 
of sympathy towards the West. 

From so decayed a stock as the Byzantine Church, 
especially after its subjugation to the Ottoman power, 
no great accession of new life could be expected. 
But it was at least a pardonable feeling which led 
the Russian reformer to look in the first instance 
to that ancient source of the civilisation of Russia, 
and, in earlier times, of the civilisation of Europe. 
The advances in education first introduced under 
Ivan the Terrible, and then interrupted by the wars 
of the Pretenders, started under Nicon into fresh 
life. The printing-press was again set to work. 

1 Levesque, iv. 76. Strahl, 229 ; a.d. 1664. "He is no lover of 
images." Collins, 15. 

2 Macarius, ii. 85. See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, xii. 
xiii. 



Lect. XI. 



His Reforms. 



417 



Greek and Latin were now first taught in the schools. 1 
The " gross and harsh intonations of the Muscovites," 
as they are called by the Syrian travellers, now gave 
way to the sweet chants 2 of the Cossack choristers, 
brought partly from Poland, partly from Greece, the 
first beginnings of that vocal music which has since 
become the glory of the Russian worship. The Bible 3 , 
which he had profoundly studied for himself in his 
youth, he now sought to exhibit in the purest form of 
which the Sclavonic translation admitted. Deputa- 
tions of learned scholars were sent to the Grecian 
monasteries to collect manuscripts to carry on the 
collations of the sacred books, which the Russian 
monk Maximus in the previous generation had died 
in attempting to accomplish. 

Chiefest of all was the change, even yet hardly Hispreach- 
appreciated in his country, and entirely without an ing * 
example in the rest of the East at that time, — the 
revival of preaching. From his lips was first heard, 
after many centuries, the sound of a living practical 
sermon. We have the impression which this revo- 
lution produced on the mind of the Archdeacon of 
Antioch : — 

" Remark, brother," says the Archdeacon Paul, sf what 
happened now, — an occurrence which surprised and con- 
fused our understandings. It was, that so far were they 
from being content with their lengthened services, that the 
Deacon brought to the Patriarch the book of Lessons, which 
they opened before him; and he began to read the lesson. for 
this day, on the subject of the Second Advent: and not only 

1 Levesque, iv. 76. 3 Levesque, iv. 70. 

2 Macarius, ii. 231 ; Haxthausen, iii. 114. 

E E 



4 i8 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XL 



did lie read it, but lie preached and expounded the mean- 
ings of the words to the standing and silent assembly ; until 
our spirits were broken within us during the tedious while. 
God preserve us and save us ! " 1 

And on another occasion : — 

(£ The Patriarch was not satisfied with the Ritual, but he 
must needs crown all with an admonition and copious ser- 
mon. God grant him moderation ! His heart did not ache 
for the Emperor nor for the tender infants, standing un- 
covered in the intense cold. What should we say to this in 
our country ? " 2 

A third example gives us at once a more pleas- 
ing impression, and a clearer notion of his manner of 
preaching. The Czar was going forth to war : — 

ef The Patriarch blessed him, and then stood before him, 
and raised his voice in prayer for him, reading a beautiful 
exordium, with parables and proverbs from the ancients, 
such as how God granted victory to Moses over Pharaoh, 
&c. ; from modern history, such as the victory of Constantine 
over Maximianus and Maxentius, &c. ; adding many ex- 
amples of this nature, and with much prolixity of discourse 
moving on at his leisure, like a copious stream of flowing 
water. When he stammered and confused his words, or 
made mistakes, he set himself right again with perfect com- 
posure. No one seemed to find fault with him or to be 
tired of his discourse ; but all were silent and attentive, as if 
each were a slave before his master." 3 

These, or snch as these, were amongst the most 
conspicuous of the reforms of Nicon; very small ac- 
cording to our Western notions, yet still in the only 
direction suited for an Oriental Church. Let those 
who doubt turn to the temperate hopes of an Eastern 



1 Macarius, i. 406. 



2 Ibid. 49, 5], 52. 



s Ibid. ii. 59. 



Lect. XL 



His Reforms. 



419 



reformation as expressed by one certainly not in- 
dulgent to superstition, who added to a wide range 
of liberal learning a special knowledge of the Chris- 
,.tian East. 1 Or let any one who knows anything of 
modern Athens say who amongst the English and 
American missionaries in those regions are named as 
the most undoubted benefactors of the Church of 
Greece, — those who have attempted to subvert the 
existing forms of faith, or those who by education 
and social intercourse have infused a new life into 
those forms ? 2 Such considerations may induce us to 
pardon the shortcomings and hail the genuine efforts 
of the Patriarch JNicon. But, in carrying out his 
schemes, two points exhibit the rude elements both 
of his own individual character and also of his Church 
and country. 

First, it is impossible not to be struck by the His savage 
savage spirit in which he fulfilled his task. We are 
not altogether unaccustomed to rough action and 
speech in Martin Luther and John Knox, but we 
must expect something more in the Scythian atmo- 
sphere of Russia. Again I refer to the journal of 
Archdeacon Paul. u He was," says the Archdeacon, 
" a very butcher amongst the clergy. His janissaries 
" are perpetually going round the city ; and, when 
" they find any priest or monk in a state of intoxi- 
" cation, they carry him to prison, strip him, and 
" scourge him. 3 His prisons are full of them, galled 

1 Dean Waddington's Greek Church, chap, viii — x. 

2 I allude, of course, to the excellent effects of the Greek 
school established at Athens by Mr. and Mrs. Hill. 

3 Macarius, ii. 364. 

E E 2 



420 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



" with heavy chains and logs of wood on their necks 
" and legs, or they sift flour day and night in the 
" bakehouse." 1 The deserts of Siberia were filled 
with dissolute clergy, banished there with their wives 
and children. 2 An instance is recorded hardly cre- 
dible, but too characteristic to be omitted, perhaps 
not so much of his wild severity as of his barbarian 
humour. It was at one of the numerous banquets 
attended by the Patriarch of Antioch, that Nicon, 
partly to show off the wonders of his master's vast 
dominions, partly to satisfy the curiosity of his own 
inquisitive mind, called before him thirty chiefs of a 
distant Kalmuck tribe, called, from the appearance of 
their physiognomies, the dog-faced tribe, or (as a 
euphemism) the tribe of the dog-faced saint, S. 
Christopher. 

" As soon as they entered, the whole assembly was struck 
with horror. They bared their heads, and bowed to the 
Patriarch with great veneration, crouching to the ground all 
in a lump like pigs. After various questions as to their 
mode of life, and travelling, and warfare, he said, f Is it 
really true that you eat the flesh of men?' They laughed, 
and answered, c We eat our dead, and we eat dogs ; how 
then should we not eat men?' He said, ( How do you eat 
men ? ' They replied, 6 When we have conquered a man, we 
cut away his nose, and then carve him into pieces and eat 
him.' He said, ( I have a man here who deserves death : I 
will send for him and present him to you, that you may eat 
him.' Hereupon they began earnestly to entreat him, saying, 
( Good Lord, whenever you have any men deserving of 
death, do not trouble yourself about their guilt or their 
punishment ; but give them us to eat, and you will do us a 
great kindness." 



1 Macarius, ii. 76. 



2 Ibid. 78. 



Lect. XL 



His Reforms. 



421 



The unfortunate victim with whom Nicon intended 
to play off this experiment, was no less a person 
than the Metropolitan of Mira. It happened that 
amidst other " odious deformities " of himself and his 
companions on a recent visit to Moscow, they were 
found smoking tobacco ; and all, except himself, were 
sent into banishment. Nicon was still, however, 
enraged against him; "for," says the Syrian Arch- 
deacon, " no crime with him is ever forgiven: and he 
" now sent to have him brought to these savages that 
" they might eat him. But he was not to be found, 
" having hid himself." 1 

It may be hoped, however, that this was only a 
severe practical jest; for on a subsequent occasion, 
when the Patriarch saw the astonishment of the 
Syrians at the dog-faced tribe, " he came forward," 
says the Archdeacon, " and taking me by the hand 
" led me before the ministers and the assembled 
" crowd, called the savages, as if to eat me, that he 
" might have his laugh and sport with us, whilst I 
" was shuddering and quaking with fear. So also 
" he did with others." One, who was a deacon, he 
actually delivered into their hands. As soon as they 
laid hold of him they tore his clothes to tatters in 
scrambling for him, and it was with difficulty that 
he was rescued, by redeeming him with fish and 
money, which the Patriarch gave as his price. The 
poor deacon, from fright and horror 2 , lay ill for a 
long time afterwards. 

Another still more serious instance is related. 



1 Macarius, i. 420. 2 Ibid. ii. 164. 

E E 3 



422 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XL 



Three deacons had married again after the death of 
their wives by the plague. As soon as the Patriarch 
had heard of this, he bound them in fetters and sent 
them to the Trinity Monastery, commanding that 
they should be confined in a wooden cell, without 
food, till they died of misery. The Patriarch of An- 
tic )cli happened to see them on his visit, and was so 
much troubled by their tears and- moans, that he 
interested himself on their behalf and obtained their 
liberty. 1 We may hope that they, like the deacon 
just mentioned in the hands of the dog-faced tribe, 
were placed there rather for terror than with any 
deliberate intention of fulfilling the threat. But the 
incidents are worthy of the countrymen of Ivan the 
Terrible, as we have seen, and of Peter the Great, as 
we shall see. 

The second point in Mcon's career is more im- 
portant. 

His adher- With all his energy and love of knowledge, he was 
itassian 6 a true son of the Eastern Church in his rigid obser- 
vance of its ordinances and ritual. He shared but 
little in the tolerant and indulgent feelings which 
have usually marked the Russian policy towards 
members of other Churches. Perceiving, as he passed 
through the streets, that the European merchants 
showed no marks of reverence to the sacred pictures, 
he drove them out of Moscow. He made a point of 
compelling all foreigners to appear as such, or incor- 
porate themselves into the Russian nation by bap- 
tism. An Armenian merchant offered him a sum of 



Macarius, ii. 151. 



Lect. XL 



His Reforms. 



423 



fifty thousand dinars to retain his long white beard ; 
but Nicon's only answer was: "Be baptized; become 
" like one of us." 1 The merchant refused, and the 
Armenians were banished. 

In one direction only his mind was entirely, even and Greek 
sensitively, open to receive new impressions. That 
direction was towards the ancient Church and Em- 
pire of Constantinople. " I am a Russian," he said, 
" and the son of a Russian 2 ; but my faith and my 
" religion are Grecian." 

Such a feeling was natural, even in a more civilised 
mind than Nicon's. The Church of Constantinople 
even then retained, as we may see from the relations 
of Cyril Lucar to the English Church, something of 
a European influence; and any Russian churchman 
of wider views would naturally turn to the ancient 
metropolis of his faith. But it had, in Nicon's case, 
this unfortunate effect. From Constantinople, as it 
then was, no new spiritual life could be expected ; at 
best an antiquarian and ceremonial form of religion, 
which not only narrowed the horizon of the reformer 
who looked to it for assistance, but turned his energies 
into subordinate channels, and aggravated the cere- 
monial tendencies already existing with too much 
force in his own Church. With the vast field which 
Nicon had before him, it is mournful to see the 
power which might have been concentrated on the 
reanhnation of the whole ecclesiastical system em- 
ployed on the correction of minute errors of ritual 
which can only be discovered through a microscope. 



1 Macarius, ii. 23. 2 Ibid. ii. 86. 

E E 4 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XL 



In order to understand the importance ascribed to 
them either by him or by his opponents, we must 
bear in mind the almost Chinese minuteness of the 
civil and ecclesiastical ceremonial of the Eussian 
Church and Court at that time. He saw worked in 
pearls on a vestment of a former metropolitan the 
authentic copy of the Mcene Creed, and perceived 
that the word " holy " had been inserted before the 
words " giver of life." Deputations went to Athos 
for correct copies of the service-books. The printing- 
press, lately established by him in Moscow, was set 
to work to circulate new rubrics. 1 His earliest 
pleasure palace was an imitation of the Iberian con- 
vent in Athos ; and for him it was that the copy of the 
picture in that convent was bought, which still occu- 
pies the most distinguished place amongst the sacred 
pictures of Moscow. 2 Stern as he was, he was con- 
stantly asking questions from the Syrian strangers, 
to set his own ceremonial straight. 3 Benedictions 
with three fingers instead of two, a white altar-cloth 
instead of an embroidered one, pictures kissed only 
twice a year, the cross signed the wrong way, wrong 
inflections in pronouncing the Creed 4 , — these were 
the points to which he devoted his gigantic energy, 
and on which, as we shall see, he encountered the 
most frantic opposition. 

We are filled with surprise as we read of the con- 
tentions occasioned by these points, to us so infinitely 
insignificant. But remember the controversies which 
have rent our own Church in the sixteenth century 



1 Macarius, ii. 85. 
3 Ibid. ii. 414. 



2 Ibid. ii. 173. 
4 Ibid. ii. 85. 



Lect. XI. His Reforms. 425 



(and can we altogether except the nineteenth) ; re- 
member the parties and the mobs which have been 
formed to attack or to defend a surplice, to reform or 
to oppose a rubric, and perhaps we shall feel that we, 
the descendants and the followers of the Puritans on 
one side, or of Laud on the other, are not entitled to 
cast the first stone at Nicon or his adversaries. 

For the time his powerful hand repressed any opposition 
overt outbreak : but some murmured inwardly ; men, changes, 
such as the Syrian Archdeacon observes are to be 
found in every nation, "of a heavy nature and un- 
" der standing, saying within themselves, ' We will 
" not alter our books nor our rites and ceremonies, 
" which we received from of old.' 1 But they had 
" not the force to speak openly, for the anger of the 
"Patriarch is not to be withstood; witness what he 
" did with the Bishop of Kolomna." Take two in- 
stances of these suppressed murmurs and of his mode 
of dealing with them, from several points of view 
highly illustrative of this contest. 

He watched with jealousy (herein agreeing with 
many in the coming generation who else would have 
been most opposed to him) the introduction of pic- 
tures painted after the European fashion into the 
houses of the Russian nobles. Listen to Archdeacon 
Paul's account of his treatment of this subject, so 
closely interwoven, as we have seen, with the whole 
religious feeling of Russia : — 

" Some of the Muscovite painters had learned to paint 
new pictures in the Frankish and Polish style. 2 And whereas 



1 Macarius, ii. 86. 



2 Ibid. ii. 57. 



426 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XI. 



this Patriarch is a great tyrant and loves the Grecian 
forms to an extreme, he sent his people and collected from 
every house wherein they were found such paintings as I 
have mentioned, even from the palaces of the grandees. 1 
Then, putting out the eyes of the pictures, he sent them 
round the city by Janissaries, publishing an Imperial pro- 
clamation in the absence of the Czar that whosoever should 
henceforth be found painting after such models should be 
severely punished. . . . When they saw,. therefore, what the 
Patriarch had done to the pictures on this' occasion, they 
judged that he had sinned greatly. Vowing imprecations 
upon him, and making a tumult, they pronounced him to be 
an open enemy to holy images. "Whilst they were in this 
disposition of mind the plague appeared, and the sun was 
darkened on the afternoon of the 12th of August. They 
immediately said, c All this that has befallen us is through 
the wrath of God for what our Patriarch has been com- 
mitting, in contempt of our holy images.' They were all so 
violent against him that they made an attempt to kill him, 
for the Czar was absent and there were but few troops. . . . 
It was on the return of the Czar that the Patriarch, obtain- 
ing his first opportunity of making a discourse in his pre- 
sence, proceeded at great length to show that the painting 
after this Frank fashion was unlawful ; and he called on our 
Lord the Patriarch of Antioch to bear witness that certain 
pictures before them were on the model of the Frank 
paintings. [They anathematised, therefore, and excommu- 
nicated any one who should continue painting like them, and 
any one who should place them in his house.] Touching 
them with his hand one by one, and showing them to the 
congregation, he threw them on the iron pavement of the 
church to break them to pieces, and ordered them to be 
burnt. But as the Czar is extremely religious, and has 
great fear of God, and was standing near us with his head 

1 A similar restriction is said to have been put on instrumental 
music in private parties, either to check in its growth a custom so 
alien to the religious feelings of Russia, or because of the licen- 
tious songs and dances with which it was accompanied. Levesque, 
iv. 64. 



Lect. XL 



His Reforms. 



427 



uncovered, attending in humble silence to the discourse, he 
entreated the Patriarch with a suppressed voice, saying, 
e No, Father ! do not burn them ; rather bury them in the 
earth.' And so were they disposed of. Every time the 
Patriarch took up one of those pictures in his hand, he cried 
aloud, saying, i This is the picture from the house of the 
noble such an one, or of such an one ' (all grandees of the 
Empire). His design was to put them to shame, that the 
rest of the congregation might see it and take warning by 
their example." 1 * 

The next instance carries us nearer home : — 2 

" The Patriarch, out of his great love for the caps of the 
Greeks, had just now made for himself a new white latia, in 
the cut of those of the Greek monks. . . . The headdresses of 
the Russian monks are very ugly, covering their eyes, and 
with ears napping down upon their shoulders. With diffi- 
culty can their faces be discerned, especially when they look 
upon the ground. As for the rest of their clothes, the filth 
of their dress is very great ; for they never wash their shirts, 
but wear them continually till they drop off. . . . The 
Patriarch, conscious of the great love the Czar bore him, 
and sensible of the advantage afforded him by the presence 
of the Patriarch of Antioch, mentioned the subject first to 
him, and then deposited, as usual, his new headdress in the 
sacristy secretly. Then he brought our master to intercede 
with the Czar that he might wear them : for he much feared 
the people, lest they should say that he had annulled their 
ancient customs and the clerical habits worn by their earliest 
saints. And so, indeed, it happened to him afterwards ; for 
when he put them on the people murmured greatly, but 
secretly through their fear of the Czar. Our master, there- 
fore, approached the Czar, and said, ' We are four Patriarchs 
in the known world, and the dress of us all is alike : by our 
consent and permission this our brother has been made 
Patriarch in the place of the Pope of Rome ; and a token of 
the Pope is that he is distinguished by his white dress. If 



1 Macarius, ii. 50. 



2 Ibid. ii. 227. 



428 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XL 



it is your majesty's pleasure, I should wish that the Patriarch 
should wear like us this headdress which I have newly had 
made for him.' The Czar, through his love for the Patriarch, 
was delighted at hearing this speech, and answered, c Bascli- 
aske Oobro !' i.e. c Very well, Father.' Then taking the cap 
from our master, he kissed it, and commanded the Patriarch 
of Moscow to put it on. The Patriarch had no sooner done 
so than his face was lighted up with joy, and the Grecian 
headdress fitted him splendidly ; for his former cap shaded 
his countenance too much. . . . But when the heads of the 
clergy and the heads of convents, the priests and the laity 
then present, saw his new dress they murmured much, saying 
amongst themselves, ( See how he has changed the dress of the 
heads of the clergy here, which they received by inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost, from the time we became Christians, at the 
hands of S. Peter : and does not the earth tremble at his 
act, who, having been hitherto dressed as a Muscovite, has 
made himself a Greek ? . . . Gradually, however," the Arch- 
deacon proceeds, " the elegance of the Greek costume made its 
way. Had any of the monks of the Holy Mountain [Athos] 
been here with loads of headdresses, they would have sold 
vast numbers at a very high price. Those who obtained 
them showed faces brilliant with delight. They began to 
complain of the burdensome weight of their old latias, and 
threw them off their heads, saying, ( If this Greek dress 
were not of divine origin, the Patriarch would not have 
been the first to wear it.' " 

"We have now, I trust, formed some general con- 
ception of the character of Nicon. 

I have said that he was not only an Eastern Luther 
but an Eastern Wolsey. His magnificence was on a 
scale before unparalleled. His favourite monasteries, 
four in number, he built anew from the ground, " some 
" living after him, some dying with him." The Patri- 
archal palace in the Kremlin is his work. For three 
years the ablest architects in Kussia were employed 
upon it; kitchens, stoves, chapels, such as were never 



Lect. XI. His Friendship with Alexis. 429 



seen before, rose within it. It still remains opposite 
to the north door of the cathedral. But it was not 
only in outward aspect that his history resembles 
that of Wolsey. We are now approaching the more 
human and dramatic elements of his story, which, 
whilst they give to it a higher than any mere eccle- 
siastical interest, justify us in assigning to it a place 
in history which the peculiarity of his ecclesiastical 
views would hardly sanction. 

It may be supposed, from the traits already 
given, that Nicon's conduct had made him many 
enemies. His innovations, as we have seen, and as 
we shall see still more clearly in the next century, 
touched the prejudices of the Kussian people in their 
tenderest point. His severity exasperated the clergy. 
His insolence enraged the nobles. The Syrian tra- 
veller describes how the highest functionaries, who 
used to enter the presence of the Patriarch unbidden, 
were now kept waiting on the threshold ; and when 
they entered, it was with extreme fear — fear many 
degrees more than they paid to the sovereign, he 
sitting and they standing. " There was," says the His friend- 
Eussian historian, " only one man who sincerely loved the Czar 
44 Nicon, and to him alone was the Patriarch devoted Alexis * 
w with all his soul, and zealous even to excess for his 
" glory." 1 That man was the Czar Alexis, son of 
Michael, and father of Peter. He had first seen Nicon 
years before, when he came up to Moscow from a 
distant monastery, and had been greatly struck by his 
tall stature and manly eloquence and the report of 
his holy life, and given him the convent of Novo- 

1 Mouravieff, 215. 



43° 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



spasky, in which the first princes and princesses of the 
Romanoff dynasty were buried. From that time 
sprang up their long and close intimacy. Whilst head 
of the convent he came every Friday to the royal 
chapel in the Kremlin for the purpose of conversing 
with Alexis after the service. When raised to the 
see of Novgorod he went up every winter to consult 
with him, and procured the gift of the Lake of Valdai 
as a halting-place on the road, where he built the 
Iberian monastery of which I have before spoken. 
When raised at last by the entreaties of the Czar, and 
by his affection for him, to the Patriarchate, they 
became inseparable. " They appeared," I again quote 
the Russian historian 1 , " as one and the same person in 
" all acts of government, passing all their days to- 
" gether, in the Church, in the council chamber, 
" and at the friendly board. To unite themselves 
" still closer by the bonds of spiritual relationship, 
" the Patriarch became godfather to all the children 
" of his sovereign, and they both made a mutual vow 
u never to desert each other on this side the grave." 
This friendship was cemented in the strongest manner, 
during the great plague which ravaged Moscow, a 
few years before its appearance in London. The Czar, 
who was absent, begged the Patriarch to attend his 
family to the Trinity Monastery, he himself (it is a 
trait not quite in keeping with his usual spirit) living 
in the hills and forests, " in a tent under the rain and 
" snow, with no other companion but his tire." 2 

The Syrian archdeacon gives us glimpses of the 
two men, both on festive and on solemn occasions. 



1 Mouravieff, p. 203. 



2 Macarius, ii. 49. 



Lect. XI. His Friendship with Alexis. 431 



The Patriarch invited Alexis to a banquet. First 
came an interchange of magnificent presents "from 
44 the Czar to the Patriarch and from the Patriarch 
44 to the Czar, flowing like the Black into the 
44 White Sea, and like the White into the Black 
" Sea. 1 The Patriarch stood at the top of the 
44 room, and the Czar went each time 2 to the door 
" to bring in the presents with his own hands, with 
" great fatigue, calling to the nobles to deliver them 
44 quickly, and he was like a waiting slave, wonder- 
44 ful to relate. . . Afterwards the Patriarch bowed 
44 to him, and expatiated on his kindness, and seated 
44 him at a royal table in a corner of the room 
44 [the place of honour]. . . The Czar, after the ban- 
44 quet, rose and filled cups of wine for all present, 
44 to the health of the Patriarch, which, as the com- 
44 pany emptied them, they placed inverted on their 
44 heads, to show that they had drunk the health com- 
44 plete. In like manner the Patriarch filled cups for 
44 them all to the health of the Czar, and these, being 
44 emptied, they placed on their heads, kneeling before 
44 and after." 

Another picture is that of the two friends during 
the sermon. 44 What most excited our admiration was 
44 to see the Czar standing with his head uncovered, 
44 whilst the Patriarch wore his crown before him ; the 
44 one with his hands crossed in humility, the other 
44 displaying them with the action and boldness of an 
44 orator addressing his auditor; the one bowing his 
u bare head in silence to the ground, the other 



1 Macarius, ii. 232. 



2 Ibid. 231. 



432 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XI. 



" bending his towards him with his crown upon it; 
" the one guarding his senses and breathing low, the 
" other making his voice ring like a loud bell; the 
" one as if he were a slave, the other as his lord. 
" . . . When the Patriarch had concluded his dis- 
" course with the prayer, he bowed to the Czar, 
" and they stood back a second time." 1 

It is from such scenes as these that Western, es- 
pecially English, writers have represented Nicon, 
some from a favourable, some from an unfavourable, 
point of view, as an Eastern Hildebrand or Becket, 
maintaining the independence of the hierarchy against 
the civil power, and trampling the Imperial govern- 
ment under his feet. It is true that there were 
certain points in which questions of this kind were 
stirred, such as that of the new code, reducing to 
the civil courts cases which had once belonged to the 
Patriarchal courts, and restraining the accumulation 
of ecclesiastical property. It is true also that the 
devout, and in some respects childlike, or childish, 
disposition of Alexis placed him for a time under a 
kind of awe, inspired by the stern character and 
high office of Nicon, such as reminds one of our Saxon 
kings in the presence of Dunstan. " I fear," 2 he said, 
in answer to a deacon who entreated his permission to 
officiate against the orders of Nicon, " I fear the 
" Patriarch Nicon, who would perhaps give me his 
" crosier and say, 6 Take it and tend the monks and 
" priests yourself; I do not contradict you in your 
u command of your favourites and troops; why then 



1 MacariuSj ii. 59. 



2 Ibid. ii. 249. 



Lect. XL His Friendship with Alexis. 433 



" do you set yourself against me in the concerns of 
" priests and monks ? " 

It is true also that his whole conduct, when he as- 
sumed the Patriarchal chair, was that of a man who 
was prepared for a vehement opposition. He had 
entered on his post immediately after his removal of 
the relics of Philip, the one martyr 1 of the Russian 
Church, to the cathedral of Moscow, by which, pos- 
sibly 2 (although of this there is no intimation), he 
may have meant to express his own anticipations for 
himself ; and it was only after he had taken from the 
Prince and people a solemn promise of obedience to 
him, as their chief shepherd and spiritual father, that 
he consented to undertake the office. 

But the whole view taken of this scene, and of 
Nicon's character, by Russians themselves, and the 
whole tenor of the story which I am about to relate, 
forbid us to ascribe to Mcon any deliberate policy of 
opposition to the sovereign power of the State, such as 
that which has animated so many of the Popes, pre- 
lates, and clergy of the West. His fears on the oc- 
casion of his entrance on the Patriarchal see were not 
from his devoted friend Alexis, but from the adherents 
of his retrograde predecessor, the Patriarch Joseph, 
who had already furiously denounced him as an in- 
novator. 3 His enmity was with a barbarous nobility 
and ignorant clergy, not with the Czar ; and when at 
last it did reach the Czar also, the rupture took place 

1 See Lecture X. 

2 Palmer's Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion, p. 56. 

3 Levesque, iv. 62. Compare Collins, p. 15: "He began to 
innovate some things, or rather reform them." 

F F 



434 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XI. 



on purely personal grounds. We hear enough of the 
civil and spiritual conflicts in Western Europe ; let us 
not thrust them into a story of a simple and natural 
quarrel between man and man, with which they have 
little or no concern. 
His quarrel The nobles watched their opportunity to separate 
Czar. the two friends. They found it in a protracted 
absence of the Czar on a two years' expedition to 
Poland, and in the failure of a Swedish campaign 
which Nicon had recommended. The Czar himself 
had had high words with the Patriarch once be- 
fore in the church, from some unexpected rudeness. 
Every instance of insolence, and doubtless there were 
many, was eagerly exaggerated. Their intercourse 
ceased ; and, as the historian of the event observes \ 
when once a mutual misunderstanding is established 
between those who have once loved each other, the 
very recollection of their former friendship poisons 
the wounds of their hearts" because the change itself 
in their mutual relations is felt as a sort of wrong and 
offence by both. The nobles gained strength. Their 
code respecting the monastic property was reintro- 
duced. One of them called his dog by the name of 
Nicon, taught it to sit up on its hind legs and to cross 
its paws in the offensive form of benediction which 
Nicon had introduced. 2 Another, in a grand pro- 
cession, struck one of the Patriarch's courtiers. The 
Patriarch demanded satisfaction hi vain. He waited 
for an interview with the Czar, at one of their accus- 
tomed meetings in church, on a high festival 3 , the 

1 Mouravieff, 218. 2 Levesque, iv. 75. 3 Baclimeister, 47. 



Lect. XL His Quarrel with Alexis. 435 



10th of July. The Czar was kept away, and in his 
stead Mcon found one of the nobles come to an- 
nounce his master's absence, and to reproach the 
Patriarch with his insolent pomp. 

Mcon felt that the crisis of his life was come, which Nicotics re- 
signation, 

he had forestalled in the promise of obedience exacted a.d.i658. 
on his accession to the Patriarchal see. In a burst of 
wild indignation he came forth, after the completion 
of the service, from the sacred gates of the cathedral 
sanctuary, and with that well-known voice which 
sounded like the mighty bell of the church through 
the whole building, announced that he was no longer 
Patriarch. " I leave my place," he said, " conscious 
" of my many sins before God, which have brought 
" this plague and woe on Moscow." 1 He took from 
the Patriarchal throne the sacred staff of Peter the 
first Metropolitan, and laid it on the most venerable 
of the sacred pictures. He threw off his episcopal 
robes, wrote a hasty letter in the vestry to announce 
his intention to the Czar, and sate down on the raised 
platform 2 whence he had so often preached to Czar 
and people, awaiting the answer. The answer never 
came; it was intercepted by his enemies. Amidst 
the terrors and lamentations of the people, who tried 
to detain him by closing the doors of the cathedral, 
by taking the horses out of his carriage, by blocking 
up the gate of the town through which he was to 
pass, he went out on foot 3 , and returned no more to the 

1 Bachmeister, 46. 

2 Or on the lowest «tep of the. Patriarchal throne. (Bach- 
meister, p. 47, who tells the story somewhat differently.) 

3 He got through by waiting for the passage of some coaches. 
Bachmeister, 47. 

ff2 



436 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



Patriarchal palace, wrote once again to the Czar, en- 
treating his forgiveness for his sudden departure, and 
plunged into the solitude, first of one, and then 
another, of his various monasteries. 

In a moment of uncontrollable anger he had made 
a sacrifice which he could not support. But his ad- 
versaries took him at his word. The see was declared 
vacant, and he, having returned from his more distant 
place of retirement to the one which was nearest to 
Moscow, remained there devouring his soul in the 
bitterness of a man who has made a false step, 
which he longs in vain to retrace. Let us follow 
him for a moment to the scene of these wild regrets. 
It is a scene eminently characteristic of the Russian 
Church. 

Convent of The last occasion on which he and Alexis had met 

the New - . . 

Jerusalem, m friendly intercourse was at the consecration of a 
small wooden church on one of the Patriarchal estates, 
about forty miles from Moscow. They were standing 
together on a rising ground which overlooked a tract 
of hills and undulating forest, presenting a variety of 
foliage rare in the monotony of Russian scenery; 
when the Czar, who had to an unusual extent the 
Russian passion for imitation of sacred places, and 
had built in his palace and in his hunting-grounds two 
copies of the Holy Sepulchre, exclaimed, " What a 
" site for a monastery; what a beautiful place for a 
" New Jerusalem! " 1 Nicon caught at the thought. 
He had himself already made a new Athos of his 
island in the Valdai Lake: "Here," he said, "there 



1 Bachmeister, 44 ; Mouravieff, 207. 



Lect. XI. 



His Resignation. 



437 



" shall be indeed a New Jerusalem. The church of 
" the monastery shall be the church of the Holy 
" Sepulchre; the river which runs at our feet shall be 
" the Jordan; the brook shall be the Kedron; the hill 
" on which we stand shall be the Mount of Olives, 
" the wooded mount beyond shall be Mount Tabor." 
Neither Alexis nor Nicon, with all their passion for 
imitation, could produce the slightest resemblance 
between the natural features of Muscovy and of 
Palestine. But Nicon did what he could for the 
building. His agents were still in the East collecting 
manuscripts for a correct version of the Liturgy, and 
he charged them to bring back from Jerusalem an 
exact model of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
The result was the church of "the Resurrection" 
(Voskresensky), or, as it is more commonly called, of 
.." the New J erusalem," which still remains a monument 
of the friendship of Alexis and Nicon. Externally 
it has the aspect of an ordinary Russian cathedral, 
still further complicated by the addition of successive 
chapels built by, or in honour of, the various members 
of the Imperial family in after times, down to our 
own day. But internally it is so precisely of the 
same form and dimensions as the church at the actual 
Jerusalem, that, intricate as the arrangements of that 
church are, beyond probably any other in the world, 
a traveller who has seen the original can find his way 
without difficulty through every corridor, and stair, 
and corner of the copy ; and it possesses the further 
interest that, having been built before the recent 
alterations of the church in Palestine, it is in some 



F F 3 



438 The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



respects (in five 1 particulars of considerable impor- 
tance) more like the old church hi which the crusaders 
worshipped than is that church itself. It was, amongst 
all the architectural works of Nicon's Patriarchate, 
that on' which his heart was most set. Throughout 
it bears his impress. In the sanctuary behind the 
screen still remains an indication of his magnificent 
schemes for the Russian Church. A vast array of 
seats rises, tier above tier, surmounted by the five 
Patriarchal thrones of Constantinople, Antioch, Alex- 
andria, Jerusalem, and Moscow, which Mcon in his 
days of power designed as the scene of a future 
General Council. A picture represents him surrounded 
by his disciples, amongst others the secretary Shus- 
kerinofT seated at his feet, bending with eyeglasses 
over his manuscript, containing, as we may suppose, 
the annals of Russia, called, from his superintendence, 
the Chronicle of Nicon. 2 Still more characteristic is 
the square tower, the cell, or " skeet " (aa-x^r^piov)^ 
which he built for himself beyond the fancied Kedron, 
in the midst of the pale misty birchwood that climbs 
the slope behind the convent. His large black hat, his 
enormous clouted shoes, his rough sheepskin 3 , bring 
before us his huge figure in the costume and manner 
of life which he adopted when he exchanged the 

1 1. There are no walls of partition between the sects. 2. The 
dome is of larger proportions, higher, and covered. 3. The en- 
trance into the chapel of the Sepulchre from the antechapel has 
not been raised. 4. The chapels of the Sepulchre and of the Gol- 
gotha are without altars. 5. The irregular form of the rock by 
the Golgotha has not been smoothed away. 

2 Levesque, iv. 75. 3 i^bid. 



Lect. XI. His Resignation. 



439 



Patriarchate for the hermitage, when he fished in the a.d. less, 
river and assisted at the drainage of the marshes like 
a common peasant, and worked like a common stone- 
mason in the erection of the convent church. It was 
what he had been of old in the monastic fortress by 
the Frozen Ocean ; it was what he kept before his mind 
even in his greatness of state at Moscow, by inviting 
from time to time to his table one of the wild enthu- 
siasts already described in mediseval Russia, who 
sate by his side, amidst the splendour of the Imperial 
banquet, in a state of absolute nudity. 1 

But neither the ideal nor the practice of solitary 
asceticism could enable Nicon to forget that he had 
been, that he was still, except by his own rash abdica- 
tion, the Patriarch of Russia. He refused by any act 
or word to acknowledge a successor in the see. He 
caused a special office to be sung in the convent, in 
which, day by day 2 , were repeated the curses from 
the 109th Psalm. " I have not cursed the Czar," 
was his answer to the commissioner who came from 
Moscow to complain (the eager denial will show the 
contrast of his position and that of Hildebrand), " I 
" have not cursed the Czar, but I have cursed you, the 
" nobles 3 of the Church ; if you have a mind to stay and 
" hear it, I will have the same office sung over again in 
" your ears." For eight years the struggle continued. 
At last a singular event brought matters to a crisis. 
Nicon in his solitude received an urgent entreaty from 
one of the few nobles who remained friendly to him 

1 Macarius, ii. 266. 2 Levesque, iv. 77. 

3 The noble referred to was Borborikina. Levesque, iv. 79. 

f f 4 



44-o The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XL 



that he would come unexpectedly to Moscow, on the 
festival of Peter, the first Metropolitan, and invite 
the Czar to join him in the cathedral, according to 
his former custom, as if nothing had intervened. 
Meditating on this letter, yet not resolved, he retired 
for his three hours' rest 1 in his hermit's tower. At the 
top of the tower a stone recess in the wall is still 
shown, narrow and short, which Mcon used as his 
bed, and on which he must have found but scanty 
room to stretch out his gigantic limbs. It is a true 
Nicon's Fakir's resting-place. On that stone bed 2 he was 
sleeping, and he dreamed that he was once more in 
his own beloved cathedral, and one by one he saw 
rise from their graves the whole line of his prede- 
cessors in the Metropolitan see: Peter, whose won- 
der-working staff he had laid on the sacred picture; 
Alexis, from the chapel hard by, the champion of 
Kussia against the Tartars ; Philip, murdered by Ivan 
the Terrible ; Job, the blind old man who had vainly 
struggled against the false Demetrius; Hermogenes, 
starved to death by the Polish invaders; Philaret, 
grandfather of the Czar Alexis : one by one, at the 
call of the wonder-worker Jonah, they rose from the 
four corners, and from the array of tombs beside 
the painted walls, and took him by the hand, and 
raised him once more into his Patriarchal throne. 
He woke up and left his cramped couch. He returned 
by night to Moscow, on the eve of Peter's festival. 
At break of day he appeared publicly once more in 
the cathedral, grasped once more the staff of Peter, 
stood erect in the Patriarch's place, and sent to the 
1 Levesque, iv. 75. 2 Mouravieff, 224. 



Lect. XI. 



Nicon's Retirement. 



441 



Czar to announce his arrival, and to invite him to 
come to the church to receive his blessing, and to 
assist at the prayers. 

The Czar was taken by surprise. He sent to con- His final 
suit his nobles. To them it was a matter of life and ietuement ' 
death to prevent the interview. And they did prevent 
it. The Czar ordered him to return ; and Nicon, in 
the bitterness of his heart, obeyed the command and 
retired from the cathedral, bearing away with him 
the ancient staff, which at last (it is a significant 
action expressive of the meaning of the whole story) 
he surrendered to the Czar, and to no one but the Czar. 
Finally, feeling that he could hold out no longer, he a.d. 1667. 
consented to the election of a new Patriarch. 

The fall of Nieon was now inevitable. At the 
instigation of his enemies a Council of the Eastern 
Patriarchs was convened at Moscow; and thus it 
came to pass that the most august assembly of divines 
which Russia has ever witnessed, met for the con- 
demnation of the greatest man whom the Eastern 
hierarchy had produced in modern times. Its gene- * 
ral acts will be best noticed hereafter. I confine 
myself here to the incidents characteristic of the pre- 
sent story. 

The trial was in the hall of Mcon's own palace. A His con- 

t # „ denmatior 

picture of the Council of Mc^ea, hung in the sacred 
corner of the room, still indicates, and probably then 
indicated, the purpose for which the hall was designed. 
Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch, 
the same who had eight years before seen Mcon in 
his highest pomp, were here in person. Mcaea, Ico- 
nium, Sinai, were also represented; Georgia, Servia, 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



a.d. 1667. Wallachia, besides the most distinguished of the hie- 
rarchy of the Kussian Church itself. In front of 
these, still communicating with them through an in- 
terpreter 1 , still claiming his rank as Patriarch, and 
refusing to sit as he could not seat himself on his 
Patriarchal chair, stood the exiled prelate. One last 
chance remained for him. Presiding in the Council, 
as Constantine had presided at Mcsea, was the Czar 
himself. How, for the first time for eight years, 
they stood again face to face. Between Nicon and 
his accusers all the fierceness of long pent indigna- 
tion was let loose. But between him and the Czar 
there was hardly anything but an outpouring of ten- 
derness and affection. Tears flowed from the Czar's 
eyes as he read the accusation; and the sight of his 
ancient friend standing, habited as if for a capital 
sentence, so moved his heart, that to the consterna- 
tion of the nobles he descended from his throne, 
walked up to the Patriarch, took him by the hand, 
and burst forth into a plaintive entreaty : " Oh ! most 
" holy father ! why hast thou put upon me such a 
" reproach, preparing thyself for the Council as if for 
" death? Thinkest thou that I have forgotten all thy 
" services to me and to my family during the plague, 
u and our former friendship?" Mutual remonstrances 
between the two friends led to recriminations be- 
tween their attendants. " That, 0 religious Czar, 
" is a lie," was the somewhat abrupt expression of one 
of Nicon' s clerks, on hearing a false accusation brought 
against his master. 2 In the general silence, produced 

1 Bachmeister, 86 ; Mouravieflf, 227. 

2 Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 63. 



Lect. XI. 



His Degradation. 



443 



either by the force of Nicon's replies or by the awful A.D. 1667. 
presence of the friendly Czar when Alexis turned 
round to see if some of the nobles had anything to 
urge, Nicon asked with his usual bitter irony : " Why 
" do you not bid them take up stones ? So they would 
" soon put an end to me ; but not with words, though 
" they should spend nine years more in collecting 
" them." They parted never to meet again. 

Alexis could not bear to be present at his con- 
demnation. The third and last meeting therefore of 
the Council was assembled in a small church, now 
destroyed, over the gates of one of the Kremlin con- 
vents. Nicon was degraded from his office to the 
rank of a simple monk, and banished for the rest of 
his life to do penance in a distant monastery. 

He maintained his proud sarcastic bearing to the His degra- 
end. " Why do you degrade me without the presence 
" of the Czar, in this small church, and not in the 
" cathedral where you once implored me to ascend 
" the Patriarchal throne?" "Take this," he said, 
offering them a large pearl from the front of his 
white metropolitan cowl, which they took off with 
their own hands from his head; " it will help to sup- 
" port you under your oppressions in Turkey, but it 
" will not last you long. Better stay at home there 
" than go wandering about the world as mendicants." 
It was in the depth of a Eussian winter, and the 
Czar sent him by one of the kindlier courtiers a 
present of money and sable furs for the journey to 
the far north. The impenetrable prelate sternly re- 
plied: " Take these back to him who sent them; these 

1 Levesque, iv. 78. 



444 The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



A. P. 1667. " are not what Nicon wants." The courtier entreated 
him not to affront the Czar by his refusal ; and also 
asked in the Czar's name for his forgiveness and 
blessing. " He loved not blessing," said Mcon, in 
allusion to the 109th Psalm, in which he had be- 
fore cursed all his enemies except the Czar, " and 
u therefore it shall be far from him." To the nobles 
he shook off the dust of his feet; and on one of 
them sweeping it up and saying (in allusion to the 
goods of the Church, which they now hoped to get) 
that this was just what they wanted, he pointed to 
the comet 1 then flaming in the sky, — the " besom 
star," as it is called in Russ, — and said, " God's 
" besom shall sweep you all away." To the people, 
who, in spite of their prejudice against his reforms, 
flocked round him also for his blessing, he replied in 
a nobler and more Christian spirit, as Philip had 
done before, this one word, " Pray." 2 The sledge 
was at hand to carry him off, and he entered it with 
the episcopal staff and mantle which the Patriarchs 3 , 
for fear of the people, had not ventured to remove. 
A winter cloak was thrown over him by the pity of 
one of the more gentle of the hierarchy. 4 With a 
dry irony he repeated to himself: "Ah, Mcon, Mcon! 
" do not lose your friends. Do not say all that may 
" be true. If you would only have given a few good 
" dinners, and have dined with them in return, none 
" of these things would have befallen you." Through 

1 This striking story, with much else, I owe to the author of 
the Dissertations which I have so often quoted. 

2 Palmer, 64. 3 Mouravieff, 232. 
4 MouraviefF, 243 ; Palmer, 65. 



Lect. XI. 



His Exile. 



445 



the south gate of the Kremlin, to avoid the crowds a,d. 1667. 
collected on the north side in the expectation of see- 
ing him pass, he was borne away, with the furious 
speed of Russian drivers, across the ancient bridge 
of the Mosqua, and rapidly out of sight of those 
proud towers of the Kremlin *, which had witnessed 
the striking vicissitudes of his glory and his fall. 

At evening, it is said, they halted in a house from 
which the occupants had been ejected. In the middle 
of the night, when Mcon and his attendants had 
been left to themselves in the piercing cold of their 
destitute condition, a trap-door in the floor of the 
room opened, an old woman came up, and asked 
which was the Patriarch Mcon. " I am he," said 
the fallen prelate. She fell at his feet, and solemnly 
assured him that she had seen in a dream the night 
before a very goodly man saying to her : " My servant 
" Mcon is coming hither in great cold and need of 
" all things. Now, therefore, give him what thou 
" hast by thee for his needs." 2 In this way, — - so 
runs the story, which is curious as showing the im- 
pression produced on the popular mind by Eicon's 
career, — he was protected against the severity of the 
rest of the journey, till his arrival 3 at the monastery 
of TherapontofF, on the shores of the White Lake. 

Mne years passed away, and Mcon remained His im- 
almost forgotten in his remote prison, when a base- ment?" 
less rumour rose that he was with the insurgent army 
of Stenza Razia on the Eastern frontier. 4 Alexis, 
covertly or openly, sent presents and entreaties for 



1 Palmer, 65. 

3 Mouravieff, 232. 



2 Ibid. 65 ; Bachraeister, 109. 

4 Ibid. 240. 



446 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



forgiveness. Nicon, at first stern as when he left 
Moscow, at last partially relented, in the hope of 
fulfilling the cherished wish of his heart, to die and 
be buried in his favourite monastery of the New 
Jerusalem, and of seeing once more his early and 
only friend. 1 But before any final reconciliation 
could be accomplished, Alexis was struck with a 
mortal illness. On his death-bed he sent messengers 
once more to Nicon, conjuring him even by all his 
former titles of Great Lord and Patriarch, to grant 
him full forgiveness. Verbally the forgiveness was 
Death of at last sent. But Alexis was already passed away 2 , 
a.d. 1670. and when ,the tidings reached Nicon in his solitary 
cell, he groaned aloud and exclaimed : " The will of 
" God be done ! What though he never saw me 
" to make our farewell peace here, we shall meet 
" and be judged together at the terrible coming of 
" Christ." 3 

Once more, on the removal of Alexis, darkness 
closed in upon the unfortunate exile. New accusa- 
tions were invented against him ; he was removed to 
a farther monastery on the same lake, and imprisoned 
with still closer severity. 

At the close of three years his deliverance was 
effected by the means which, now that his beloved 
master was gone, he would probably most have pre- 
ferred for himself. The preceptor of the young Czar 
Theodore, Simeon of Polotzky, was a monk who had 
travelled in the West, and there, from a jumble of 
Latin theology and astrological divinations, conceived 



1 Palmer, 66 ; Mouravieff, 244. 

2 Palmer, 67. 



3 Mouravieff, 243. 



Lect. XL 



His Return. 



447 



a wild scheme of creating four Patriarchal sees in the 
Kussian Church, after the manner of those of the 
East, surmounted by one Papal throne, which he 
destined for the only man in Russia who was capable 
of filling it, the exiled but never forgotten Nicon. 
He worked on the mind of his royal pupil in one 
direction. Another older friend was the Princess 
Tatiana, sister of the late Czar, who had always re- 
mained faithful to Nicon, and one of whose works of 
devotion, an illuminated Gospel, is still shown in 
the treasury of the Convent of the New Jerusalem. To 
that beloved edifice — still in the unfinished state in 
which its founder had left it — she took her nephew, 
to visit the spot, and to receive from the monks a 
petition for the return of Nicon. The Czar laid it 
before the Patriarch Joachim, who for a time strongly 
resisted ; but hearing at last that Nicon was preparing 
for his latter end, his heart was touched and he 
consented. 

Prom this point the story cannot be better told than Return of 
in the words of the Russian historian, whose narrative a.d. i68i. 
here, in its simplicity and pathos, forms a remarkable 
contrast to the turgid Orientalism by which, to our 
tastes, the general style is often disfigured. The 
whole story is full of that peculiar river-scenery of 
Russia with which we were made familiar in the 
earlier stages of its history. 

" On the very same clay on which the gracious permission 
of the Czar and the Patriarch arrived at the monastery of 
S. Cyril, Nicon, while it was yet very early, from a secret 
presentiment had prepared himself for the journey, and, to 
the astonishment of everybody, ordered the religious who 
were in personal attendance upon himself to hold themselves 



448 



The Patriarch Nicon. 



Lect. XI. 



A.D. 1681. in readiness. With difficulty they placed the old man, now 
worn out with sickness and infirmity, in a sledge which took 
him by land to a barge on the river Sheksna, which he de- 
scended to the Volga. Here he was met by brethren from 
the monastery of the Resurrection, or New J erusalem, who 
had been sent for that purpose. Nicon gave orders to drop 
down the Volga as far as the point where Yaroslaff [with its 
high bank crowned by monasteries] overlooks the river. Near 
one of these he put to shore, and received the communion 
of the sick, for he began to be exceedingly feeble. The 
Hegumen [or Prior] with all the brotherhood went out to 
meet him, accompanied by a former enemy of Nicon, the Ar- 
chimandrite Sergius, the same that during his trial kept 
him under guard and covered him with reproaches, but had 
since been sent to this monastery in disgrace to perform pe- 
nance. This Sergius, having fallen asleep in the refectory, 
at the very hour of the arrival of Nicon, saw in a dream the 
Patriarch appearing to him, and saying, 6 Brother Sergius, 
arise; let us forgive and take leave of each other!' when 
suddenly at that moment he was awakened and told that the 
Patriarch was actually approaching by the Volga, and that 
the brotherhood had already gone out to the bank to meet 
him. Sergius followed immediately, and, when he saw Nicon 
dying, he fell at his feet and, shedding tears of repentance, 
asked and obtained his forgiveness. 

" Death had already begun to come upon the Patriarch 
by the time that the barge was moving down the stream. 
The citizens of Yaroslavla, hearing of his arrival, crowded 
to the river, and, seeing the old man lying on his couch all 
but dead, threw themselves down before him with tears, 
kissing his hands and his garments, and begging his blessing ; 
some towed the barge along the shore, others threw them- 
selves into the water to assist them, and thus they drew it 
in and moored it against the monastery of the All-merciful 
Saviour. 

" The sufferer was already so exhausted that he could not 
speak, but only gave his hand to them all. The Czar's 
secretary ordered them to tow the barge to the other side of 
the river to avoid the crowds of the people. Nicon was on 



Lect. XT. 



Death of Nicon. 



449 



the point of death: suddenly he turned and looked about as A.D. 1681. 
if some one had come to call him, and then arranged his hair 3 
beard, and dress for himself, as if in preparation for his last 
and longest journey. His confessor, together with all the 
brethren standing round, read the commendatory prayers for 
the dying ; and the Patriarch, stretching himself out to his 
full length on the couch, and, laying his arms crosswise upon 
his breast, gave one sigh, and departed from this world in His death, 
peace. In the meantime the pious Czar Theodore, not know- 
ing that he was dead, had sent his own carriage to meet him 
with a number of horses. When he was informed of it he 
shed tears, and asked what Nicon had desired respecting his 
last will. And when he learned that the departed prelate 
had chosen him as his godson to be his executor, and had 
confided everything to him, the good-hearted Czar replied, 
with emotion : 1 If it be so, and the Most Holy Patriarch 
Nicon has reposed all his confidence in me, the will of the 
Lord be done. I will not forget him.' He gave orders for 
conveying the body to the New Jerusalem." 1 

A picture in the convent represents the scene. His fune- 
Down from the hill, where Nicon and Alexis had ia " 
stood when the name of " the New Jerusalem " was 
first suggested, the long procession descends towards 
the unfinished buildings of the monastery. The Czar 
walks immediately before the gigantic corpse, which, 
on its uncovered bier, is visible to the whole attendant 
crowd. So was Nicon borne to his last resting-place. 
It was in the spot which he had always designed for 
hhnself, in the " Chapel of Melchizedek," at the foot 
of " Golgotha," close by the spot where, in the actual 
church of the Holy Sepulchre, lie the remains of 
Godfrey of Bouillon. Over the tomb were suspended, 
and still remain, the heavy chains which he wore 
round his body in the rude hermitage. At his head 

1 Mouravieff, 264—249. 

G Gr 



45° 



The Patriarch Nicon. Lect. XI. 



is the small waxen picture which he carried about 
with him in all his wanderings. Amidst the copies 
of the sacred localities which surround the grave, it 
yet receives from the Russian pilgrims a share of 
devout enthusiasm, and awakes in the Western tra- 
veller an interest the more sincere, as being, amidst a 
crowd of artificial hnitations, the only genuine reality. 
He rests, after his long vicissitudes, in the place 
which he had appointed for himself. He rests, all 
but canonised, in spite of his many faults, and in 
spite of his solemn condemnation and degradation by 
the nearest approach to a General Council which the 
Eastern Church has witnessed since the Second 
Council of Nicasa. He rests, far enough removed 
from the ideal of a saintly character, but yet having 
left, behind him to his own Church the example, 
which it still so much needs, of a resolute, active, 
onward leader; to the world at large, the example, 
never without a touching lesson, of a rough reformer, 
recognised and honoured when honour and recog- 
nition are too late. He closes the whole epoch of 
Russian history of which he was the central figure. 
His life, as has been strikingly observed, extends 
itself over the whole period of the Russian Patri- 
archate, which was in fact the period of transition 
from the old Russia to the new ; and already there was 
born to the Imperial house that still greater Reformer, 
who in the next generation was to carry out more 
than all that Nicon in his highest dreams could have 
anticipated, if not for the Christianisation, at least for 
the civilisation, of the clergy and peojDle of Russia. 
To describe the career of that Imperial 'Reformer, 



Lect. XI. 



His End. 



45i 



more fortunate than his ecclesiastical predecessor, to 
imagine what would have been the consequence had 
Peter found a Mcon, or had Mcon found a Peter, 
either as a rival or as an ally, will be our conclud- 
ing task. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

a.d. 1613. MICHAEL ROMANOFF. 

1619. Philaret, Patriarch. 

1633. Joasaph I, Patriarch. 

1642. Joseph, Patriarch. 

1645. ALEXIS. 

1652. Nicon, Patriarch. 

1654. Plague. Building of the New Jerusalem. 

1658. Retirement of Nicon. 

1667. Deposition of Nicon. 

Joasaph II, Patriarch. 

1673. Fitirim, Patriarch. 

1674. Joachim, Patriarch. 
1676. THEODORE II. 
1681. Death of Nicon. 



g g 2 



45 2 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



LECTUEE XII. 

PETER THE GREAT AND THE MODERN CHURCH OF RUSSIA. 



It is needless to specify the works on the life of Peter the 
Great. A catalogue of the chief of them will be found in 
the preface to the compendious Life of Peter the Great in 
the Family Library. The more special authorities for 
his ecclesiastical history are mentioned in the notes. 

I must, however, particularly notice the Russian documents 
translated in cc The Present State and Regulations of the 
Church of Russia," by Henry Consett, chaplain at the 
British factory, 1727. 



Peter the If the history of the first Russian Reformer suffers 
from our ignorance, the same cannot be said of the 
second. If no one has heard of Mcon, every one 
has heard of Peter. Let us first briefly recall his 
general character and career, and then transplant 
him into the special field of history, that of the 
Eastern Church, with which we are too little accus- 
tomed to associate his name. 

I. Much as has been said and written of Peter the 
Great, yet there is a singularity in his position which 
always provokes afresh the curiosity of mankind. The 



Lect. XII. His Importance, 453 

second founder of the youngest born of European 
Empires, he gathers round himself all the romantic 
interest of a legendary hero, an Alfred or a Charle- 
magne; yet he is known to us with all the exactness 
and fullness of recent knowledge. No prince of mo- His con- 
dern Europe is so familiar to almost every country in JS? Eu- 
it, as Peter of Eussia. He was, as no other prince rope ' 
has been, a guest of each. Holland, Sweden, Poland, 
Turkey, Prussia, Austria, Italy, knew hhn well by 
sight or hearing as he passed to and fro on his mar- 
vellous journeys. He is ours, too, in a special sense. w i t h Eng- 
All London was alive with expectation and excite- land ' 
ment when his arrival in England was known. Every 
one was full of stories of the artifices by which the 
strange barbarian sought to evade the eagerness of 
our national curiosity to see the prodigy. He comes 
directly across the path of English ecclesiastical his- 
tory in his long conversations with Bishop Burnet. 
He comes for a moment even across the # path of 
our own academical history. " Last week," says with Ox- 
Narcissus Luttrell \ u the Czar of Muscovy went 
"privately to Oxford; but, being soon discovered, he 
" immediately came back to London without viewing 
" those curiosities he intended." An honorary degree 
was conferred upon him. 

Strongly, however, as we are riveted by this 
strange apparition in foreign lands, it is only in his 
own country that he stands before us in his fall 
proportions. Look at him as he presents himself in 
the gallery of the portraits of the Czars. From Ivan 



1 Diary, iv. 368. This, I believe, is the only notice of his 
visit. 

G G 3 



454- 



Peter the Great. Lect. Xll. 



the Terrible each follows each in grotesque barbaric 
costume, half Venetian, half Tartar, till suddenly, with- 
out the slightest preparation, Peter breaks in amongst 
them, in the full uniform of the European soldier. 
The ancient Czars vanish to appear no more, and 
Peter remains with us, occupying henceforward the 
His a P - whole horizon. Countenance, and stature, and man- 
peaiance. -pursuits are absolutely kept alive in our 

sight. We see the upturned look, the long black 
hair falling back from his fine forehead, the fierce 
eyes glancing from beneath the overhanging brows, 
the mouth clothed with indomitable power. We gaze 
at his gigantic height, his wild rapid movements, the 
convulsive twitches of his face and hands, the tre- 
mendous walking-staff 1 , almost a crow-bar of iron, 
which he swings to and fro as he walks, the huge 
Danish wolf-dog and its two little conrpanions which 
run behind him. We are with him in his Dutch house 
amidst iftie rough pieces of wood which he has col- 
lected as curiosities, the tools, the lathe, the articles 
of wood and ivory that he has turned. No dead man 
so lives again in outward form before us, as Peter 
in St. Petersburg. But not in outward form only. 
That city represents to us his whole Herculean course, 
more actually Hercules-like than any of modern times, 
His sta- and proudly set forth in the famous statue erected by 
Catharine II. In front of the Isaak church, built to 
commemorate his birthday, hi the midst of the great 
capital which he called forth out of nothing, rises the 
huge granite block from Finland, up which he urges his 

1 The only relic of the old costume of the Czars. See Macarius, 
i. 381. 



i 



Lect. XII. 



His Character. 



455 



horse, trampling the serpent of conspiracy under his 
feet, rearing over the edge of the precipice of the stu- 
pendous difficulty which he had surmounted, his hand 
stretched out towards the wide stream of the Neva, 
to which he looked for the regeneration of his country. 
Truly it is no exaggeration of what he attempted 
and achieved. Think of what Russia was as already 
described. Doubtless the two Ivans had done some- 
thing; doubtless, too, his father Alexis and the 
Patriarch Nicon had turned their thoughts south- 
ward and westward. But, taken as a whole, it was, 
with many noble elements, a wild Oriental people, 
ruled by a court wrapped round and round hi Ori- 
ental ceremonial. What must the man have been, 
who, born and bred in this atmosphere, conceived, 
and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own 
manual labour and his own sole gigantic strength, 
executed the prodigious idea of dragging the na- 
tion, against its will, into the light of Europe, and 
erecting a new capital and a new empire amongst 
the cities and the kingdoms of the world? St. Peters- Found a- 
burg is indeed his most enduring monument. A pet^s- k 
spot up to that time without a single association, buig * 
selected instead of the holy city to which even now 
every Russian turns as to his mother ; a site which, 
but a few years before, had belonged to his most in- 
veterate enemies ; won from morass and forest, with 
difficulty defended, and perhaps even yet doomed to 
fall 1 before the inundations of its own river; and 

1 " Up to this point the floods have come," said an attendant, 
showing the mark on a tree by the river bank. " Give me a 
hatchet," said the angry Czar, and cut down the tree at a blow. 

g g 4 



456 Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



now, though still Asiatic beyond any capital of the 
West, yet in grandeur and magnificence, in the total 
subjugation of nature to art, entirely European. And 
the change from Moscow to St. Petersburg is but a 
symbol of the revolution effected in the whole Empire 
by the power of Peter. For better, for worse, he 
created army, navy, law, dress, amusements, alphabet, 
some in part, some altogether, anew. Much that 
was superficial, much that was false, much that broke 
out under his successors into frightful corruption 
and depravity, at least of the higher classes, came in 
with the Western civilisation. But whatever hopes 
for the world or the Church are bound up with the 
civilisation of the West, did penetrate into Russia 
through Peter and through no one else. 
His So unlike the rest of his dynasty, — Philaret, the 

schemes t , . . a|r . 

for civiiis- founder of the house, a reverend ecclesiastic ; Michael, 
ing ussia. ^j ex « g ^ Theodore, yielding and gentle princes, — sud- 
denly appears this man, bursting with brutal pas- 
sions, as if .all the extravagances of the family had 
been pent up to break forth in him. And yet in this 
savage, drunken and licentious, the victim of un- 
governable fury, arose this burning desire for civili- 
sation. His very violence was turned to promote 
his end. Literally, not metaphorically, by blows, by 
kicks, by cuffs, he goaded his unwilling people for- 
wards. 1 Russia, as the Russian poet sings, was the 
hard anvil, and Peter was its terrible hammerer. 
But. the strangest, the most affecting, part of his 
career is this, that what he required from others he 

1 Many of the expressions here used I owe to conversation 
with intelligent Russians. 



Lect. XII. 



His Reforms. 



457 



laboured to acquire for himself. In the solitude of 
barbarism in which he was placed, he knew that by 
his own mind, by his own hands, if at ail, his country 
was to be changed. As filthy in his habits as any 
Russian serf of the present day, to whom every Eu- 
ropean comfort is distasteful, he yet was able to en- 
dure the splendour of Paris and London, and, what 
is more astonishing, the cleanliness of Holland. Pos- 
sessing in a remarkable degree the turn for mechanical 
pursuits, of which trophies are preserved in every 
part of his dominions, he yet, with a largeness of 
mind very rarely found in company with such pur- 
suits (contrast the unfortunate Louis XVI. ), used 
them all for reconstructing the fabric of his empire. 
" He is mechanically turned," was Bishop Burnet's 
observation of him, " and seems to be designed by 
" nature rather for a ship carpenter than a great 
"prince." But the Bishop was mistaken; and the 
remarkable point of Peter's career is that he was both. 

One instance may suffice to remind us of the 
difficulties which he had to overcome alike in him- 
self and in his Empire. 

Inheriting — apparently it was all that he did in* His naval 
herit from his family — the unhappy tendency to 
cataleptic fits, he was specially subject to them from 
his earliest years whenever he came in sight of water, 
in consequence of a fright which he had had when, 
at the age of five, he was suddenly wakened from 
sleep by the sound of a cascade in the river Yaousa. 1 
In spite of this, in spite of all other obstacles pre- 

1 Stahlin, § 84. For the details of this hydrophobia, see Strah- 
lenberg's Description of Russia, 273, 274. 



458 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



sented by the inland character of his enormous Em- 
pire, he determined to render himself a sailor and 
his country a maritime power. He overcame his own 
infirmity by incessant efforts, first on the little stream 
of the Mosqua, then on the wide lake of Pereslav, 
then by serving as a ship-boy on board a Dutch 
vessel ; till finally the water which had been his early 
terror became his natural element. The new capital 
on the Neva was to be built without bridges that 
he and his people might be always on its waters, 
passing and repassing. The boat 2 which he first 
built remains still, " The Little Grandsire," to which 
once a year the Kussian navy does homage. " My 
" ships," he said, " shall make ports for themselves." 3 
His own life is filled with anecdotes of hairbreadth 
escapes by water. In the storm in the Gulf of Fin- 
land, he reassured the terrified sailors : " Never fear ! 
" Who ever heard of a Czar being lost 4 at sea?" On 
another like occasion he rebuked the ambassador who 
asked what account could be rendered to his master 
if he were shipwrecked: " Make yourself easy; if we 
" go down we shall all go down together, and there 
" will be no one to answer for your Excellency." 
His last illness was fatally aggravated by the gene- 
rous rashness with which, on a raw winter day, he 
dashed into the water to save the distressed crew. 

I dwell on these general traits of Peter's character 
and career, partly because we cannot understand his 
ecclesiastical changes without taking into account 



1 Stahlm, § 84. 

2 Its history is given in a tract translated by Consett, 206. 

3 Stahlin, § 84. 4 Ibid. § 110. 



Lect. XII. 



His Difficulties. 



459 



the aspect of the whole man ; partly because there is 
something in the exhibition of such perseverance and 
resolution, which is in itself a part of that higher his- 
tory of the Church of which we ought never to lose 
sight. I make no apologies for what have been only His pas- 
too truly called his Samoyedic excesses. But in con- 
sidering this gross licentiousness we must remember 
the strong temptations of his early education; and 
in considering his brutal violence of temper, action, 
and language, the same excuses which have been 
offered for the violence of other reformers, of higher 
religious pretensions, must also be in some degree 
accepted for Peter. " I know well my faults, my and dim- 

cultics 

" bursts of passion, and therefore it is that I wish to 
" have those near me like my Catharine, who will 
" warn and correct me. 1 I can reform my people; I 
" cannot reform myself." So he exclaimed in the 
penitent mood which followed one of his frenzies of 
lawless rage. There are many who would not have 
felt, much less expressed, the thought. Drinking, the 
fatal vice which, as we have seen, Vladimir I. had 
declared to be the indispensable privilege of a Russian 
Prince, Peter did, it is said, by the effort of his later 
years entirely abandon. A wild sense of justice and 
truth ran through even his most grotesque extrava- 
gances. 

II. But the question still remains, what was the true His con- 
relation of the Eastern Church to this extraordinary with the 

r. Church. 

man r 

It is striking to reflect that not only at the close 



1 Stahlin, § 83. 



460 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



of his career, when, in the fulsome style of Orien- 
tal eulogy, he is celebrated as the Japheth, Samson, 
Moses, David, Solomon, of Russia 1 , but in his earliest 
years, the Russian Church seems to have claimed 
him as her own ; and the first recollections of his 
dangers and deliverances were associated with the 
His escape chief sanctuary of his country. The Troitzka Monas- 
Troitzka teiy, which has twice before figured as turning the 
Convent. ^ Russia, was the refuge of Peter, when still a 

boy of twelve years old, with his mother Natalia, 
from the fury of the Strelitzes. She was permitted to 
conceal herself, not only within the precincts of the 
convent, not only within the walls of the principal 
church, but behind the sacred screen, beside the altar 
itself, where, by the rules of the Eastern Church, no 
woman's foot is allowed to enter. That altar (still 
remaining on the same spot) stood between the past 
and the future destinies of Russia. On one side of 
it crouched the mother and her son ; on the other the 
fierce soldiers were waving their swords over the 
head of the Imperial child. 2 " Comrade, not before 
" the altar ! " exclaimed the more pious or the more 
merciful of the two assassins. At that moment a 
troop of faithful cavalry galloped into the courtyard, 
and Peter was saved. In the seclusion of that same 

1 Oration of Theophanes ; Consett's State of Russia, pp. 
280—282. 

2 It is said that the recollection of that moment was the cause 
of his convulsions (Stahlin, § 32), and that twenty years after- 
wards he recognised this soldier, though disguised in a seaman's 
dress, and started back with an instinct of horror. He forgave 
him, but forbade him ever again to appear in his presence ( Stah- 
lin, § 26), as not daring to trust himself to look at the man who 
had once so filled him with terror. 



Lect. XII. His Relations to the Church. 461 



military convent, it is said, he first learned his taste 
for soldiering. The tower is still shown where he shot 
the ducks in the neighbouring stream. The ivory 
ball which he turned, to employ the vacant hours of 
his retirement, still hangs in the refectory. 

Many, no doubt, and rude were the shocks sus- Hisreia- 

J tions to 

tained, both by Peter's orthodoxy and by the other forms 

. . , of rsligion. 

Church's loyalty; but neither entirely failed. As 
we read the account of his contact with the dif- 
ferent forms of European religion, we seem to be 
reading again the story of his ancestor, Vladimir. 
There was the same inquiry on his side; the same 
solicitations on the other side. Everywhere on his 
journeys through Europe he did for himself what 
Vladimir had done by his envoys; heard the doc- 
trines and attended the worship of the countries 
through which he passed. He learned the condition 
of our own Church in his walks over London with 
Bishop Burnet, and his dinner at Lambeth with Arch- 
bishop Tenison. He received, like his descendants, a 
Quaker deputation, and attended a Quaker meeting. 
He listened with profound attention to a Lutheran 
sermon 1 at Dantzic. He dashed in pieces the drink- 
ing-cup of Luther at Wittemberg, in vexation at not 
being allowed to carry away the memorial ; and ob- 
served that his monument 2 in the Church was not 
too splendid for so great a man. He ordered Dutch 
translations of the Bible, and loaded, it is said, two 
vessels with works of Dutch theology to enlighten 
his Russian subjects. A messenger was despatched 

1 See the story in Stahlin, §§ 12, 80. 

2 Stahlin, § 41 ; see also Life of Peter, p. 273. 



462 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



to Kome to learn the state of religion in the Latin 
Church. He stood in motionless admiration before 
the tomb of Cardinal Kichelieu. And, on the other 
hand, he was, like Vladimir, the mark for all the 
proselytisers and ecclesiastical agitators of the West. 
The Pope was in high expectation 1 of his arrival 
to effect a union between the Greek and Latin 
Churches. The Gallican Church represented its 
claims through a memorial of the doctors of the Sor- 
bonne. The Scottish Episcopalians 2 and Anglican 
Nonjurors tried to secure through him an alliance 
of the Eastern Church, as a prop to their forlorn 
condition. Even his unhappy son Alexis became 
the subject of constant rumours from expectants 
on this side and that. " Foreign letters advise from 
" Vienna that the Pope was in great hopes the here- 
" ditary Prince of Muscovy may be persuaded to 
" turn Papist." 3 (June, 1710.) " Letters from Dres- 
" den say that the hereditary Prince of Muscovy hath 
"lately received communion there in a Lutheran 
"church." 4 (Oct. 1710.) 
His adhe- What Peter might have been, had he lived earlier 
the Eastern 01' later, it is useless to guess. But, in fact, he 
still remained at heart a Prince of the Orthodox 
Church. In this respect Burnet's observation was 
correct, at least as regarded matters of faith. u He 
" was desirous to understand our doctrine, but he did 
" not seem disposed to mend matters in Muscovy." 
He observed the chief Eastern fasts. 5 The blade of 



1 St. Simon's Memoirs, vol. xv. 4 Ibid. 648. 

2 Lathbury, History of the Nonjurors, ch. viii. 

3 Luttrell's Diary, vi. 591. 5 Stahlin, § 109. 



Lect. XII. 



His Religion. 



463 



the sword which he wore at Pultowa is inscribed 
with a prayer \ and has carved upon it the figure of 
S. George. In his battles he carried about always 
one of the sacred pictures from the Trinity Convent. 
He consecrated his new capital by transferring thither 
the remains of the* sainted Prince, Alexander of the 
Neva, who had illustrated that river by his exploits 
centuries before its great destinies were unfolded. 
His motto in his wars was, " For the Faith and the 
" Faithful." 2 He had heard much of freethinkers at 
Amsterdam, but he treated their doings as mere im- 
postures ; and in the true spirit of a Russian believer 
added : " They despise the Fathers of the Councils, but 
" the least of those Fathers was better and wiser than 
" they." 3 

We see signs also of more than a mere ceremonial 
religion. It was said that he knew the Epistles of 
S. Paul by heart. 4 His journal contains many grateful 
acknowledgments of the good Providence which so 
often had preserved liim, and instructed him even by 
misfortunes. 5 He strictly prohibited talking in church, 
and working on Sunday, as marks of irreverence. 
" He who forgets God," he said, " works to no pur- 
" pose." 6 In the small wooden house where he lived 
to watch the erection of his capital, one of the three 

1 It is preserved in the museum at Pesth. 

2 Gabriel. (Consett's State of Eussia, 395.) 

3 Stahlin, § 54. 

4 Theophanes. (Consett 325.) 

5 Journal de Pierre le Grand, p. 30; Narva (239), Pultowa 
(270), Vibourg (295), Pruth (377), Pecklin (438), Eevel (481), 
Petersburg (491). 

6 Stahlin, § 79. 



4 6 4 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



rooms was marked out for his devotions, and now, 
fitted up as a small chapel, and daily crowded with 
worshippers, is a monument at once of his own sin- 
cere faith, and of the religious associations with 
which his mere name is connected by the people. 
At Saardam, in like manner, a small closet in the 
loft of his wooden cabin answered the same purpose ; 
and it is a touching incident in his life, that when he 
revisited Amsterdam after an interval of twenty years, 
during which he had carried out almost all the great 
designs then still in the future, he was deeply affected 
on entering the cottage at Saardam, and climbing up 
into the loft 1 remained there alone a fall half hour, 
doubtless hi devotion as before. 2 His strong common 
sense and his genuine love of truth showed themselves, 
not in defiance of his religious feelings, but in unison 
with them. " Ora et labora " was the quotation with 
which he wound up his address to his senators. 3 And 
when in a dangerous illness his life was despaired of, 
and he was asked, according to an ancient usage in 
such cases, to propitiate the Divine mercy by the 
pardon of criminals condemned to death, who would 
then pray for his recovery, he heard the charges 
against them, and then, in what was thought to be 
his death agony, replied : " Do you think that by 
" arresting the course of justice I shall be doing a 
" good action, for which my life will be prolonged ? 
" or that God will listen to the prayers of wretches 
" who have forgotten Him? Carry out the sentence; 
" and, if anything will procure from Heaven the gift 



1 The loft is now blocked up. 

2 Life of Peter, 240. 



3 Ibid. 268. 



Lect. XII. 



His Religion. 



465 



" of my health and life, I trust that it will be this 
" act of justice." 1 

His actual deathbed, as described by his two chief His death- 
ecclesiastical friends, Theophanes 2 Procopovitch 
archbishop of Plescow, and Gabriel archimandrite 
of the Trinity Convent, is a curious summary of the 
conflict of the religious experiences of his life. One 
of the clergy, apparently Theophanes himself, 

" made mention of the death of Christ and of the Divine 
blessings procured by it, and admonished the Emperor that 
now the time was come for him to think of nothing; else : 
that he should for his own support meditate on that which 
he had frequently inculcated to others. 3 On this he sprang 
up and endeavoured to raise himself; and being raised a 
little by his attendants, with eyes and hands lifted as high 
as he could, though faltering in his speech, he broke out into * 
these words : e This it is which at length can quench my 
'thirst; this alone which can refresh me.' Just before the 
admonition he had moistened his mouth with julep (as he 
was obliged to do very often), and by way of allusion he 
uttered these words, and again and again repeated them. 
The Monitor further exhorting him that he should, without 
any diffidence, confide in the mercy of God, that he should 
believe his sins to be forgiven through the merits of Christ, 
and that the grace of eternal life was near at hand, to this 
he redoubled his reply, " I believe and I trust.' And when 

1 Stahlin, § 2. A similar trait is given in Hermann's Geschichte, 
iv. 80. 

2 The two statements in the funeral orations of Theophanes 
and Gabriel are given in Consett's Regulations, 261, 360. They 
contain, no doubt, much of mere eulogy, but still they represent 
the contemporary feeling about the dying Emperor. 

3 This appears to be said partly in allusion to Peter's habit 
of dwelling, in common discourse (as it would seem), on the 
Lutheran doctrine of justification. "He many times copiously 
and learnedly discussed the question concerning the justification 
of a sinner through Christ gratis" — Consett, 260. 

H II 



4 66 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



tlie Monitor exhorted him to a prayer of faith, and produced 
those words which they recite who with us come to the 
Lord's Supper, e I believe, Lord, now, and confess that 
6 Thou art the Son of the living God, who earnest into the 
e world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,' he added, f I 
' believe l 3 Lord, and confess ; I believe, Lord, help Thou 
( mine unbelief.' Shortly after he seemed to be sinking. 
Crowds of "officers and people entered the room, and with tears 
and howlings kissed his hand. He lay awhile speechless, 
saluting every one with his looks ; then with great difficulty 
said, e Hereafter.'' Whether by this word he would have a 
vacant space to himself, free from molestation (for his little 
apartment was thronged with people), or he spoke of the 
time after death, is doubtful. So all retired. He continued 
fifteen hours afterwards in great agony, beating his side with 
his right hand (his left was palsied) ; yet whenever the 
Monitor spoke to him concerning the vanity of the world, 
or concerning heaven, or concerning the death of Christ, he 
would make effort to raise himself up, to sign the cross 
with his hand, or to lift it to heaven. . . He tried also to 
moderate his groans into accents of praise, and to cheer up 
his countenance, and would have embraced his Monitor. 
Finally, he received the Sacrament a second time from 
Gabriel, and soon after expired." 

This was the general position of Peter towards 
the ancient Eastern religion, in which he had been 
born and bred. Something is dne to a form of the 
Christian faith which kept its hold on snch a wild 
ungovernable man in such an age. To have traversed 
so many foreign lands, and watched so many foreign 
faiths, and yet still to have retained his own tradi- 
tionary belief, may be fairly ascribed to the strength 
inherent in that belief. And it must have been a 

1 It is characteristic both of Peter and of his people, perplexed 
between his religion and his innovations, that the popular tradition 
of his last words is this expression slightly altered, " My God, I 
" am dying ! help Thou mine unbelief." 



Lect. XII. 



His Reforms. 



467 



happy circumstance, that, owing to the ancient 
Eastern recognition of something like the principles 
of toleration \ these principles were not allied in the 
mind of Peter, as they would have been in the minds 
of the contemporary sovereigns, Louis XI V., Charles 
XII., and Frederick II., with indifference or infidelity. 

III. Nevertheless, though he maintained his ground 
as a faithful son of the Orthodox Church generally, 
the most instructive portion of his ecclesiastical ca- 
reer is the remarkable contest which, like Nicon, he 
maintained with one section of it, and which led to 
the results now to be described. 

The year 1700, the first year of the eighteenth His re- 
century, which was marked by his adoption of the 
European calendar, may also be called the year of 
the Russian Reformation, the boundary between old 
and new Russia, as in civil, so in ecclesiastical mat- 
ters also. The substitution of St. Petersburg for 
Moscow was the sign that in both these spheres he 
had set his face, not Eastward, but Westward. As 
the ancient Pa^an associations of Rome drove the 
first Christian Emperor of the West to Constanti- 
nople 2 , so the ancient Oriental associations of Mos- 
cow drove the first Reforming Emperor of the East 
to the Baltic. It is true that the reformation set 
on foot by Peter, like that set on foot by Xicon, was 
strictly in accordance with the national spirit. It 
was a revolution, not of doctrines and ideas, but of 
customs, institutions, habits. But in this respect it 
went deeper than the attempts of Mcon, conducted 
as it was by a stronger hand, under more favourable 

1 See Lecture I p. 40. 2 See Lecture VI, 

u u 2 



468 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



auspices, and therefore with far more success. u We 
" should be guilty," he said, " of ingratitude to the 
" Most High, if, after having reformed by His gracious 
" assistance the civil and military order, we were to 
u neglect the spiritual; and if the Impartial Judge 
" should require of us an account of the vast trust 
u which He hath reposed in us, we should not be able to 
" give an answer. 1 Increase of schools, restrictions on 
the growth of monasteries, and regulations respecting 
the monastic property, were amongst the chief practical 
Abolition measures by which the change was carried out. The 
triarchate". main constitutional alteration was that which con- 
sisted in the abolition of the office of Patriarch 2 , 
and the substitution of a Synod consisting of prelates, 
presided over by the Emperor or his secretary. We 
need not go through the steps by which this was 
carried out, the long interval by which he accustomed 
the people to see the chair vacant, and the savage 
buffoonery with which he afterwards held up the 
office to ridicule. But it is important to observe that 
here, as in the story of Mcon, we must avoid intro- 
ducing Western ideas of the collision of Church and 
State into a measure which can only be properly 
understood from the Oriental point of view. The 
power of the Czar, or Emperor, as he was now called, 
was hardly altered by the change. Peter was as 
much or as little the head of the Church as his pre- 
decessors had been before him. 3 He had, it is true, 
removed out of his pathway the possibility of a power- 

1 Preface to Spiritual Regulations, Consett, 2. 

2 Stahlin, § 87. 

3 See the Spiritual Regulations, part i. (Consett's Present 
State of the Russian Church.) 



Lect. XII. His Reforms. 469 



ful rival in the state, and in a moment of passion, 
when asked to restore the office, he exclaimed, as is 
well known, " I am your Patriarch," and then, throw- 
ing down his hunting-knife on the table, " There is 
" your Patriarch." But these were expressions 
which might have been used by Vladimir or Ivan, 
and the office was abolished in fact, not so much 
because he feared the ecclesiastical power, as because 
he was enraged by the retrograde obstinacy of Adrian, 
the last Patriarch, because he desired to sweep away 
the world of barbaric ceremonial with which the 
Patriarchal throne was surrounded, and because he 
wished to carry out, here as elsewhere, the prin- 
ciple of substituting colleges or bodies of men 
for the rule of individuals. 1 The institution which 
thus perished was hardly more than a century old, 
and its destruction was planned and approved, not 
only by Peter himself, but by his two powerful 
ecclesiastical supporters, Theophanes archbishop of 
Plescow, and Demetrius of RostofF, and sanctioned by 
the whole body of Eastern Patriarchs. Before the 
final abolition, the question of its continuance was 
long kept open. Stephen Yavorsky, the leader of the 
more conservative party in the clergy, was appointed 
its guardian ; and on Stephen proposing to the 
Emperor that the Patriarchal chair should either be 
removed from the cathedral at Moscow or else re- 
ceive an occupant, he replied : " This chair is not 
" for Stephen to sit in, or for Peter to break." 2 

1 Spiritual Regulations, Consett, 13 — 16. 

2 This I owe to the author of the "Dissertations on the Ortho- 
dox Communion." 

H H 3 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



But there was a series of reforms to Eastern feelings 
more irritating than the suspension or destruction of 
the Patriarchate. There was a party in the Russian 
Church which had been exasperated to the verge of 
endurance by the innovations of the Patriarch Nicon, 
and it was this same party which was now exasperated 
beyond endurance by the innovations of Peter. What 
Nicon had begun by introducing new customs from 
the South, Peter, it seemed, was about to finish by in- 
troducing new customs from the West. Even more 
remarkable than the direct parallels to the movement 
of the European Reformation are the similarity and 
dissimilarity of the indirect results produced by 
Luther and Henry VIII. in the West, and by Nicon 
and Peter in the East. We are sometimes accus- 
tomed to think of the ancient Eastern Church, and of. 
the Russian Church, as free from the Western evils of 
division and dissent. This is not the case. 1 We have 
already seen that there are outside the Eastern Ortho- 
dox Church vast schismatical communities exactly 
analogous to those in the West, but differing in this 
most characteristic respect, that, whereas our Refor- 
mation rent away sects and nations because the esta- 
blished Churches of Europe would not change enough, 
the Eastern sects have arisen because the established 
Churches of Asia have changed too much. Such to 
a considerable extent are the Chaldeans, Syrians, and 
Copts, in relation to the Church of Constantinople ; to 

1 My information is chiefly derived from what I heard on the 
spot, and from Haxthausen's work on Russia. There is an inte- 
resting article on this subject in the " Revue des Deux Mondes," 
xv. 609, based on two romances by Soltikoff, and an official report 
presented to the Emperor in 1851. 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenters. 



47 



them the Councils of Chalcedon and of Ephesus re- 
spectively present the stumbling-blocks which Protes- 
tants find in the Council of Trent. But such in the 
most remarkable degree are " the Separatists " — " the TheRas- 
Rascolniks," as they are called — of the Church of m s ' 
Russia. Under that form indeed are included many 
wild sects which probably date much farther back 
than the seventeenth century, relics of ancient heathen- 
ism in the unconverted aboriginal tribes, or of the 
Gnostic and Manichsean tendencies of the East, or of 
the secret Judaising conspiracy which was repressed 
by Ivan III. But these, however curious in themselves, 
have no special bearing on the national history of the 
Russian Church, nor do they constitute the importance 
of the Separatist body. The real force, the perma- 
nent interest, of the Rascolniks lies in the eight 
millions of souls who call themselves Starovers ; that The star- 
is, " the Old Believers." They claim to be the one 
true Orthodox Church of Russia. The ancient wan- 
dering state of the Russian peasants is to them the 
mark of true Christianity. Passports are the marks 
of the Beast. 1 Huge bonfires are lit to burn any that 
they can lay hold of. They are Dissenters, but on 
the most conservative principles which it is possible 
to conceive. They are Protestants, but against all 
reform. They are Nonjurors and Puritans both in 
one. They use the Apocalypse as freely as it is 
sometimes used amongst ourselves, but against, not 
in favour, of change. They regard the Established 
Church as Babylon, themselves as the Woman who fled 
into the wilderness, Nicon as the False Prophet, the 

1 Kevue des Deux Mondes, 621. 
h h 4 



472 



Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 



Emperor as the Great Dragon, Peter as Antichrist 
himself. Their converts from the Established Church 
are solemnly rebaptized. With every particularity 
of detail these converts are required to abjure the 
Mconian heresy ; to throw into the street the dust of 
the room where any Niconians may have sate ; never 
to eat of the same dish, nor to bathe in the same bath, 
with them. 1 Even the universal salutation of the 
Russian Easter has no binding force for them : "Christ 
" is risen." " Yes," they repeat, with a contemptu- 
ous smile, " our Christ is risen, but not yours." 2 
Opposition And what are the grounds of this Eastern non- 
conformity? They are grounds which all Western 
Churches would do well to hear, — Eome or Geneva, 
England or Scotland, Conformists or Nonconformists, 
Free Church or Established Church, — grounds almost 
equally instructive whether we recognise in them 
our own likenesses or our own antipodes. It was 
deemed a mortal sin in the established clergy that 
they gave the benediction with three fingers instead 
of two. 3 Ecclesiastical history was ingeniously pressed 
into the service, and the true cause of the separation 
of the Latin from the Eastern Church was alleged to 
have been, that Pope Formosus had introduced into 
the world the impious and heretical doctrine of the 
three fingers; in consequence of which he had been 
condemned as a heretic, his body disinterred after 
death, and the offending fingers cut off, by his more 
orthodox successor. 4 Their form of the cross has three 



1 Strahl, 298, 343. 
4 Haxthausen, i. 323. 
Church History, ii. 385. 



2 Ibid. 330. 3 Ibid. 303. 

For the true story see Robertson's 



Lect. XII. The Dissenters. 



transverse beams instead of the Greek two, or the Latin 
one. 1 It was a mortal sin to say the name of Jesus 
in two syllables instead of three 2 , or to repeat the 
Hallelujah thrice instead of once. The course of the 
sun pointed out beyond doubt that all processions are 
to go from left to right, and not from right to left. 3 It 
was an innovation of the most alarming kind to read 
or write a word of modern 4 Kuss, to use the service 
books of which the errors have been corrected by col- 
lation with the original copies, or to use the revision 
by which the Authorised Version has been purified 
from the mistakes produced through time or ignorance. 
It was an act of unpardonable rashness to erase the 
word " holy," which had thus crept into the clause of 
the Nicene Creed which speaks of the Giver of Life, 
or the interpolation which caused them to speak in 
their baptismal service of " one baptism by fire for the 
" remission of sins." 5 In defence of this corruption 
of the text whole villages of these " Fire-Baptists " 
have been known to commit themselves to the flames. 
It is probably (with the single exception of the some- 
what similar foundation of the practice of Suttee 6 in 
India) the most signal instance of martyrdom in the 
cause, not even of a corrupt practice or a corrupt 
doctrine, but of a corrupt reading. 

These were the main charges against Nicon. But Opposition 
there were others still greater against Peter. It was t0 Peter * 

1 Strahl, 304. 2 Ibid> 304> 

3 Ibid. 253, 303. These practices (probably Armenian) date 
from the twelfth century. 

4 Haxthausen, i. 208. 5 Strahl, 285. 

6 See the interesting account of the corrupt reading of the 
Veda in Professor Max Miiller's Essay on Comparative Mytho- 
logy, p. 23, 



474 Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 

Pictures, a mortal sin to introduce into the churches pictures by 
Western artists. All that Raphael or Correggio ever 
painted are abominations in the eyes of an ancient 
Russ. It is a mortal sin to hear the services chanted 
in the sweet notes which were brought by Nicon from 
Greece, improved by Peter from Germany, perfected 

Tobacco, by Catharine II. from Italy. It is a departure from 
every sound principle of Church and State to smoke 
tobacco. The ancient Czars and Patriarchs had for- 
bidden it, under pain of tearing out the offending 
nostrils. Peter for that very reason, and for com- 
mercial reasons also, tried to force the abhorred article 
on the now reluctant nation, and asked whether the 
smoking of tobacco was more wicked than the drink- 
• ing of brandy. " Yes," was the deliberate answer, 
reaching perhaps the highest point of misquotation 
that the annals of theological perverseness present, 
" for it has been said that 1 not that which goeth 
" into a man, but that which cometh out of a man 

Potatoes. « denleth him.' " It is, or was till very recently, a 
mark of heresy to eat the new unheard-of food of the 
potato, for that accursed " apple of the earth " is the 
very apple of the Devil, which was the forbidden 
fruit of Paradise. 

Alteration Up to this time the year had always begun on the 

dar. 1st of September, and been dated from the creation 
of the world. The Emperor, on the opening of the 
eighteenth century, conceived the daring design 
of giving to Russia the 1st of January as its New 
Year's Day, and the Nativity of Christ as the era of 
its chronology. Was not ttaVthe very sign of Anti- 
christ, that he should change the times and seasons? 
Could there be anything so impious as the assertion that 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenters. 



475 



the world was created in January, when the ground 
was covered with snow, not on S. Simon's day \ in 
September, when the corn and the fruits were ripe? 
Did the Czar think that he could change the course 
of the sun ? Most serious, however, of all Peter's Beards, 
changes was the endeavour to assimilate his country- 
men to the West by forbidding the use of the beard. 
The beard was indeed one of the fundamental charac- 
teristics of the ancient Eastern faith. Michael Ceru- 
larius had laid it down in the eleventh century as 
one of the primary differences between the Greek and 
Latin Churches. " To shave the beard " was pro- 
nounced at the Council of Moscow, in the seventeenth 
century, 44 a sin which even the blood of martyrs 
" could not expiate." 2 It was defended, it is still de- 
fended, by texts of Scripture, by grave precedents, 
by ecclesiastical history. " The Levitical law com- 
" mands us not to cut the hair or the beard." 44 Man 
44 was made in the image of God : is the image of 
44 God to be defaced?" 44 The sacred pictures repre- 
44 sent our Saviour bearded." 44 But S. George," it may 
be said, 44 has no beard." 44 Yes, but S. George was 
44 a soldier, and probably shaved in obedience to 
44 his commanding officer." Even Peter, with all 
his energy, quailed before the determined opposition. 
The nobles and the gentry, after a vain struggle, 
gave way and were shaved. But the clergy and the 
peasantry were too strong for him. Flowing locks 
and magnificent beards are still 3 , even in the Estab- 

» Heretic, i. 43. 2 Strahl, 282. 

3 " They are continually dressing and combing it, and are very 
diligent in looking at themselves in their mirrors, of which one, if 
not two, is in every church." — Macarius, i. 325. 



476 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



lished Church, the distinguishing glory of the clerical 
order. To the peasants a compromise was permitted. 
Many when compelled to shave yet kept their beards 
to be buried with them, fearing lest without them 
they should not be recognised at the gates of heaven ; 
and finally a tax was substituted, of which the token 
of receipt was a coin stamped with a nose, mouth, 
moustaches and a bushy beard, and now throughout 
the ranks of Nonconformity a shaven chin is nowhere 
to be seen. 

Eepresent- We smile as we read these struggles of a great 
oldRussia. monarch with his people for such trivial objects, and 
as we read these reasons for the separation of a vast 
community from the Church of their fathers. Yet 
it is but an extreme instance of the principle so dear 
to the natural ecclesiastical man; the doctrine of 
keeping things exactly as they are. In themselves 
too the Rascolniks are historically interesting, as the 
likeness of the ancient Russian Church and society 
as seen before Peter and before Nicon. They are 
truly the " fossilised relics " of an earlier state. They 
are conservatives within conservatives ; orthodox with 
a superlative orthodoxy. Whatever memorials they 
can retain or win of their former heritage are to them 
beyond all price. If a sacred picture is missing 
from an ancient church, the suspicion always is that 
the Dissenters have stolen it. A Russian prince 
being at Rome a few years ago, at the time when 
the city was agitated by the theft of the head of S. 
Andrew from St. Peter's, his Russian servant observed 
to him with characteristic gravity, that no doubt 



i Life of Peter, 108. 



Lect. XII. The Dissenters. 



477 



it must have been carried off by a Rascolnik. The 
Czar is still to them an object of reverence, but it is 
the Czar as he appears in ancient pictures, not the 
modern Emperor. " I cannot take the oath of allegi- 
u ance as you require," replied a Rascolnik soldier to 
his commanding officer ; " if you will allow me to take 
" it to the real Czar, the White Czar, I will do it in a 
" moment ; but not to him whom you call Imperator. 
" In our sacred pictures and holy books we have the 
" portrait of the true White Czar. He wears on his 
" head a crown, on his shoulders a large gold-em- 
" broidered mantle, in his hands a sceptre and a globe. 
" But your Emperor wears a uniform, a three-cornered 
" hat, a sword by his side, like other soldiers. You 
" see, I know what I am about." 1 

For a like reason the Patriarchal cathedral at 
Moscow, already so often mentioned 2 , is to them 
(though rarely entering its walls) a centre of devotion 
and reverence, even more than to the members of the 
Church itself. There all is old. No saint, no noted 
tomb is witliin those walls later than the fatal reforms 
of Nicon. Demetrius of Rostoff and Metrophanes of 
Voronege, the latest saints of the Established Church, 
whose pictures have found a place in the adjacent 
cathedral of the Archangel, have not penetrated into 
the old Patriarchal cathedral itself. No false imitations 
of Raphael and Rubens, no fancies of Catharine II. 
or Alexander L, break the antique uniformity of the 
paintings which cover the walls of that venerable 
sanctuary. Therefore it still unites the affections 
both of the Establishment and of the Dissenters. 



1 Haxthausen, i. 328. 



2 Lectures X. and XI. 



478 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



Once a year, on the festival of Easter, they come to 
gaze upon it ; and then, in the open square in front of 
it, hold amicable discussions with their brethren of 
the Established Church. The controversy usually 
begins by remarks on the large fresco of the Apoca- 
lypse outside the Cathedral. They are, as may be in- 
ferred from the comparisons before mentioned, careful 
students of the Revelation, and the picture naturally 
opens up the whole question of the schism from 
Babylon, much *as it might in Ireland between Orange- 
men and Eoman Catholics. They argue, we are told, 
calmly but with much earnestness, and often with a 
remarkable knowledge of the words of Scripture, and 
of the decrees of the Seven Councils. A wilder 
portion of the sect, who specially revere the memory 
of Peter III., as a martyr for the customs of their 
forefathers 1 , believe that the day will come when the 
great bell of the Kremlin shall sound long and loud 
to the uttermost ends of Siberia, where, according to 
their belief, that Prince still survives, and whence he 
will come back to his own, and set up the true Church 
on the ruins of the reformed Establishment. 2 
Their set- The greater part of the Starovers are settled along 
Moscow*' the banks of the Yolga, and amongst the Cossacks of 
the Don. But there are some hundreds at Moscow, 
who, since the reign of Catharine II. have intrenched 
themselves in two or three large settlements on the 
outskirts of the city. Let us follow them thither. 
A visit to one such community will give us an ade- 
quate impression of all. Beyond the outermost bar- 
rier of Moscow we find ourselves on the edge of 

1 Tooke's Catherine II., c. 8. 2 Haxthausen, i. 302. 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenters. 



479 



the primeval forest, which here comes up almost to 
the town itself. An intricate road through lanes or 
gullies, worthy of the days before the deluge of Peter's 
changes, brings us to a wild scattered village, the 
village of Preobajensk, or the " Transfiguration." It 
is celebrated as the spot to which Peter in his youth 
withdrew from Moscow, and formed out of his com- 
panions the nucleus of what has since become the 
Imperial Guard, who from this origin are called the 
Preobajensky regiment. But there is no vestige of 
Peter or the Imperial Guards in what now remains. 
A straggling lake extends itself right and left into the 
village, in which the Kascolniks baptize those who 
come over to them from the Established Church. On 
each side of it rise, out of the humble wooden cottages 1 , 
two large silk factories, the property of the chief 
amongst the Dissenters; for they number amongst 
their members many merchants and manufacturers, 
and (as amongst the Quakers) there is a strong com- 
munity of commercial interests in the sect, which con- 
tributes much to its vitality, and maintains the general 
respectability of the whole body. Hard by, within the 
walls as of a fortress, two vast enclosures appear. 
These are their two main establishments — one for 
men, the other for women. For in this respect also 
they exhibit a type of the ancient Russian life, in 
which, as we have before seen, the seclusion of the 
women was almost Oriental in its character. Within 
the establishment for men stand two buildings apart. 
The first is a church belonging to the moderate 

1 The settlement has been there since the great pestilence of 
1771. Strahl, 322. 



480 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



The mode- section of the Starovers; those namely who retain 
rateStai- g ^ gQ muc h regard to the Established Church as to 
be willing to receive from them ordained priests. 
The clergy who seceded in the original movement of 
course soon died out, and henceforth the only way of 
supplying the want was by availing themselves of 
priests expelled from the Established Church for mis- 
conduct, and of late years they have been fortunate 
enough to secure from the Metropolitan of the Or- 
thodox Greeks in Hungary 1 the loan of a Bishop, who 
has continued to them a succession of new priests. 
But there has been also an attempt on the part 
of the Government and the clergy, to incorporate 
them to a certain extent, by allowing them a re- 
gular priest of the Establishment, who is permitted 
to conform to their usages ; and not long ago a con- 
siderable step was taken by the Metropolitan, who 
agreed to consecrate a part of the church never con- 
secrated before, himself in some particulars, as in the 
order of the procession, adopting their peculiar cus- 
toms. Even to this church of Occasional Conformists, 
as they may be called, the studious exclusion of all 
novelty gives an antique appearance, the more re- 
markable from its being in fact so new. Built in the 
reign of Catharine II., it yet has not a single feature 
that is not either old, or an exact copy of what was 
old. The long meagre figures of the saints, the 
ancient form of benediction, the elaborately minute 
representations of the Sacred History, most of them 
collected by the richer Dissenters from family trea- 
sures or dissolved convents, are highly characteristic 

1 Ch. Remcmbr. xxxv. 85. 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenters. 



of the plus quam restoration of mediaeval times. The 
chant, too, at once carries one back two hundred 
years. The Church resounds, not with the melodious 
notes of modern Russian music, but with the nasal, 
almost Puritanical, screech which prevailed before the 
time of Nicon, which is by them believed to be the 
" sole orthodox, harmonious, and angelical chant." 1 
But the principle of the Old Believers admits of a The ex- 
more significant development. Within a stone's throw overs! St 
of the church which I have just described is a second 
building, nominally an almshouse or hospital for aged 
Dissenters, but, in fact, a refuge for the more extreme 
members of the sect, who, in their excessive wrath 
against the Reformed Establishment have declined to 
receive even runaway priests from its altars, and yet, 
in their excessive adherence to traditional usage, have 
not ventured to consecrate any for themselves. As 
the moderate Rascolniks are called "Popofchins 2 ," or 
" those with clergy," so these are called " Bezpo- 
pofchins," or " those without clergy." It is a division 
analogous to that of the Lutherans and Calvinists in 
the German, of the Presbyterians and Independents 
in the English, Reformation. Accordingly, the service 
of these extreme Dissenters is conducted by laymen, 
just so far as, and no farther than, could be performed 
without an altar and without a priest. Their only 
link with the National Church consists in their re- 
tention of a few particles of consecrated oil, and of 
consecrated elements 3 , preserved by constant dilu- 

1 Haxthausen, iii. 118. 

2 See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 296—302. 

3 The rite of Confirmation in the Eastern Church, of which 
mention has already been made in Lecture I. p. 34, is adminis- 

I I 



482 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



tion. The approaches of their milder brethren to the 
Establishment they regard, naturally, as a base com- 
promise with Babylon. In many respects, the ritual 
of the two sects is the same. In both buildings alike 
we see the same gigantic faces, the same antique 
forms. But, unlike the chapel of the Popofchins, or 
any church of the Establishment, the screen on 
which these pictures hang, the iconostasis, is not a 
partition opening into a sanctuary beyond, but is 
the abrupt and undisguised termination of the church 
itself. You advance, thinking to pass, as in the 
ordinary churches, through the painted screen to the 
altar, and you find that you are stopped by a dead 
wall. In front of this wall — this screen which is 
not a screen (so let me describe the service which 
I there witnessed, on the eve of the anniversary 
of the Coronation) — an aged layman, with a long 
sectarian beard, chanted in a cracked voice such 
fragments of the service as are usually performed by 
the deacon; and from the body of the church a few 
scattered worshippers (their scantiness probably oc- 
casioned by the refusal of the sect to recognise the 
great State festival) screamed out the responses, bow- 
ing the head and signing the cross in their peculiar 
way as distinctly as so slight a difference will permit. 

tered, not as in the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions 
by Bishops, but as in the Lutheran by Presbyters. But, inas- 
much as the essential part of this rite in the East consists, not in 
the imposition of hands, but in the chrism or anointing with the 
sacred oil, the derivation of the rite from the episcopal order is 
still maintained in the circumstance that the oil, afterwards dis- 
tributed through the parishes of the diocese, is in the first instance 
consecrated by the Bishop. It is of this consecrated oil that the 
Rascolniks retain the portion described in the narrative. 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenters. 



483 



That scanty congregation, venerable from their very 
eccentricity, that worship in the dim light of the 
truncated church, before the vacant wall which must 
constantly remind them of the loss of the very part 
of the ceremonial which they consider most essen- 
tial, is the most signal of all triumphs of the letter 
that kills over the spirit that quickens ; a truly Judaic 
faith, united with a truly Judaic narrowness, such as 
no Western nation could hope to produce. It shows 
us the legitimate conclusion of those who insist on 
turning either forms, or the rejection of forms, into 
principles, and on carrying out principles so engen- 
dered to their full length. 

That the Russian Church, containing elements Thestrug- 
such as these, should have survived at all the shock TetZf 1 
of Peter's revolution, is a proof of no slight vitality. 
But, after the first convulsion was over, it became ap- 
parent that (taking them as a whole) the religious 
feelings and the religious institutions of the country 
had embraced the change, and moved along with it. 
Many of the clergy did for a time make a stirT resist- 
ance ; the unfortunate Alexis fell a victim to his inti- 
macy with some of the disaffected Bishops ; the Old A - D - 1719. 
Believers broke out into open rebellion ; one of 
them attempted Peter's life ; some thousands of them, 
in the reign of the Empress Anne, intrenched them- 
selves in the convent fortress of Solovetzky, and died, 
fighting to the last gasp, like the remnant of the a.d. 1730. 
Jewish people in the war of independence. But they 
were, after all, only a section of the nation, only a 
small minority of the Church, condemned by the 
great mass of the national hierarchy. Like as they 

i 1 2 



484 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



were in many respects to our Nonjurors, in this 
respect they were precisely opposite: the Nonjurors 
failed because they were a schism of clergy without 
laity; the Old Believers failed because they were a 
schism of laity without clergy. Gradually the wild 
superstitions which even Nicon had not dared to 
touch gave way before the searching thrust of the 
Emperor. Pictures that wept on arriving at the 
inclement climate of St. Petersburg he resolutely 
detected and destroyed. His last public act was to 
order the removal of many of the chapels and pictures 
in the public streets, and the order was carried out 
in the presence of the Holy Synod, by the formal 
destruction of a sacred picture of S. Nicholas, Theo- 
phanes of Novgorod striking the first blow with his 
hatchet. 1 In the oath still taken by the Russian 
Bishops at their consecration occur these remark- 
able provisions introduced by him, and pledging the 
hierarchy for ever against both the pious frauds and 
the corrupt lassitude to which all ecclesiastical dig- 
nitaries are naturally tempted : — 2 

" I promise and vow that I will not suffer the monks to 
run from convent to convent. I will not, for the sake of 
gain, build, or suffer to be built, superfluous churches, or 
ordain superfluous clergy. I promise yearly, or at least 
once in three years, to require on my visitations that there 
may be erected no tombs of spurious saints. Impostors 
who go about as possessed, with bare feet and in their shirts, 

1 Hermann, iv. 444. 

2 See Spiritual Eegulations (Consett, 29), which give in- 
stances both of Christian and Pagan superstitions which are to 
be put down ; amongst others, the deification of Friday, under 
the name of Petnitza. " They are like snow-drifts stopping 
the passage of men in the right road to truth." (p. 30.) 



Lect. XII. Modern Church of Russia. 485 



I will give up to the civil authorities, that they may drive 
out the evil spirits from them with the knout. I will 
diligently endeavour to search out and put down all impos- 
tures, whether lay or clerical, practised under show of devo- 
tion. I will provide that honour be paid to God only, not 
to the holy pictures, and that no false miracles be ascribed to 
them." 

Promises such as these, introduced into the most 
sacred offices of the Church, must turn the face of 
its rulers, despite of themselves, in the direction which 
an ancient Establishment is slow to follow. Even 
Protestant Churches might have gained much, had 
their Bishops and ministers been bound by a like 
solemn pledge not to support spurious readings or 
false aids of the truth, not to honour popular im- 
postors, not to give way to prejudice or clamour 
when raised under the name of religion. 

How far Peter succeeded in his reforms without 
impairing the national faith, is a question which it 
would be presumptuous to attempt to answer, unless 
with a greater knowledge than any foreigner can at- 
tain. But a few characteristic names emerge from 
the obscurity of the Russian hierarchy, which seem 
to justify the hope that the problem is not incapable 
of solution. Theophanes of Plescow, Metrophanes of 
Yoronege, Demetrius of RostofF, were the Cranmer, 
the Ridley, and the Latimer who assisted the Russian 
Henry in his arduous work, and who, whilst they 
earned the hatred of the Old Believers, have yet, at 
least in the two latter instances, won a reverent 
admiration from the hearts of the nation at large. 1 

1 For Theophanes, see Consett, p. 449. For Metrophanes, see 
Mouravieff, 402. 

1 1 3 



4 86 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



The Dissenter passes by with contempt the tomb of 
Demetrius in the venerable church of KostofF, as 
the man who, when the Eascolniks said they would 
rather part with their heads than their beards, an- 
swered : " You had better not. God will make your 
" beards grow again : will he ever make your heads 
" grow again?" But by many a pilgrim the grave 
is visited as of a canonised saint, and no work is 
more popular in Russian cottages than his " Lives of 
the Russian Saints." 

Ambrose. Advancing to the next generation, we arrive at 
Ambrose, Archbishop of Moscow. He was known 
for his learning, especially in Hebrew, of which he 
gave proof in a translation of the Psalter from the 
original. It is, however, in his death that we catch 
the clearest glimpse of the feeling of his time. Long 
before his appointment to the see of Moscow, he had 
been archimandrite of Nicon's beloved convent of 
the New Jerusalem. Amongst the many traces which 
there remain of his munificence is a suite of rooms 
threaded by a secret corridor, which was constructed 
by him as a means of escape, in consequence of a 
presentiment that he should meet with a sudden and 
violent end. It remains as a singular monument of 

a.d. 1770. an anticipation strangely fulfilled. After his transla- 
tion to Moscow, the city was ravaged by a frightful 
pestilence. 1 The people crowded to a sacred picture 
m such numbers as to endanger the public health. 
At the advice of the civic authorities, Ambrose 
ventured to remove it. 2 At once the religious feel- 
ing of the Russian populace, so terrible when really 

1 Strahl, 246. 2 Clarke's Travels, i. 100. 



Lect. XII. Modern Church of Russia. 487 



roused, was touched to the quick ; they rose in the 
same state of wild excitement as, within our time, 
was seen at St. Petersburg in the panic of the cholera. 
There was at Moscow no Nicholas to overawe them 
by his terrible presence. They rang a tocsin with 
the great bell of the ancient Novgorod, as it hung 
in its belfry by the Sacred Gate. The Archbishop 
fled to the suburbs, and took refuge in the Donskoi 
Monastery. He was dragged out, and stabbed to the 
heart, it is said, by one of the Old Dissenters. " I 
" send you the incident," writes the Empress Catha- 
rine in one of her letters to Yoltaire, " that you may 
u record it among your instances of the effects of 
" fanaticism." We may repeat it here as a story 
characteristic, in all its points, of the Church and 
people of Russia. 

We pass on yet again a few years, and come to the piato. 
name which alone perhaps in the Russian hierarchy 
has obtained a European celebrity, Plato, Arch- 
bishop, and afterwards Metropolitan, of Moscow. 
His interviews with Dr. Clarke 1 and with Reginald 
Heber have given him a place in the minds of English- 
men ; and the gay Italian -like retreat which he built 
for himself under the social name of Bethany, in the 
pleasant woods of the Troitzka convent, is at once a 
memorial and a type of the easy graceful character 
which in him appeared at the head of the once bar- 
barian clergy of Moscow. We see him, as he sits 
on his garden bank, in his country dress and large 
straw hat, laughing heartily at the mistakes of 
Englishmen about the Russian ceremonies, and at 

1 Clarke's Travels, i. 193—202. 
1 1 4 



488 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



their eagerness to see a worship which they could not 
understand. He was the favourite both of the civi- 
lised Catharine and, for a time, of her savage son. A 
portrait of him in the Bethany convent represents 
him in his start of surprise when, by a device of the 
Empress Catharine, he heard suddenly in the service 
his name read as Metropolitan instead of Archbishop. 
Diderot came at her request to converse with him, 
and began his argument with " Non est Deus." Plato 
was ready with the instant retort, " Dixit stultus in 
" corde suo ' Non est Deus.' " Of him too is told a 
story, sometimes given to a divine of our own. The 
Empress wished to put to the test his powers of 
extemporaneous preaching, and having told him that 
she wished to hear him read a sermon written by one 
of her chaplains, sent to him, as he mounted the 
platform for preaching, a blank sheet. He looked 
at it for an instant, and then began " God created the 
u world out of nothing," and preached on that theme 
a splendid sermon. He rebuked the madness of his 
pupil, the Emperor Paul, by refusing to receive at 
his hands a military decoration, and by opposing his 
intention of officiating at Divine Service. In his last 
decline he sustained the spirit of the Emperor Alex- 
ander by his letter of encouragement in the terrible 
year of the French invasion. Approaching nearly to 
the character of a European prelate, he was yet a 
Russian in heart and faith, and as such is still 
honoured by the mass of his countrymen. 

And if now we arrive at our own time, and ask 
how the Russian Church has fared in the nineteenth 
century, let me name three instances which show 



Lect. XII. 



Modern Divines. 



489 



that the most modern of our Western movements 
are not altogether without parallels there. Inno- 

Innocent 

cent, Archbishop of Kamtschatka, is to the Russian chatkaf S ~ 
Church as the Bishop of New Zealand to our own, 
an example of the revived missionary spirit in their 
vast colonial empire. Not in canoes or steamers, but 
in reindeer sledges, he traverses to and fro the long 
chain of Pagan islands, which unite the northern 
portions of the Asiatic and American continents, and 
has, it is said, brought many to the Christian faith. 

Philaret, the venerable Metropolitan of Moscow 1 , Philaret of 
represents, in some measure at least, the effect of that 
vast wave of reactionary feeling which we sometimes 
associate exclusively with England, even with Oxford, 
and a few well-known names in Oxford, but which 
really has passed over the whole of Europe. As the 
gay retreat of u Bethany" brings before us the lively 
career of Plato, so the austere revival of mediaeval 
hermitages in those same woods of Troitzka, under 
the name of " Gethsemane," brings before us the at- 
tenuated frame and serene countenance of the aged 
Philaret, the gentle and saint-like representative in 
Russia of opinions and practices which in England 
are too near ourselves to be described more closely. 

One third instance in conclusion. The celebrated 
German philosopher Schelling, conversing with a 

1 To Philaret was intrusted the important State secret of the 
will of Alexander I. He crowned both Nicholas and Alexander II. 
He is one of the first preachers of the present Church of Russia, 
and his striking manner renders his sermons impressive even to 
those who cannot follow the language. A volume of these has been 
translated into French. I am glad to have this opportunity of ac- 
knowledging his dignified courtesy and affability when I had the 
pleasure of seeing him in Moscow in 1857. 



490 



Peter the Great. 



Lect. XII. 



Professor young Russian Prince who had come to Berlin to 
Troitzka profit by his instructions, asked him whether he 



Monastery. 



knew a famous professor in Russia whose name he 
mentioned, but of whom the Prince had never heard 
before. " Young man," said the old philosopher, 
" you ought to be ashamed of yourself for coming to 
14 seek instruction in other countries and not knowing 
" what is to be found in your own. Of all men now 
" living, there is no one else who has so well understood 
" and expounded the philosophy which you have come 
" here to study." The Prince returned, and lost no 
time in seeking the unknown prophet. He was found 
in the person of the parish priest of the village of 
Troitzka, also discharging the duties of Professor of 
Philosophy in the adjacent monastery. In that 
monastery, the Oxford of Russia, Theodore Golo- 
bensky lived and died, a master of all the recent 
forms of German thought and speculation, yet 
esteemed and revered by all as an illustrious orna- 
ment of the Orthodox Church. 1 Reserved in manner 



1 I speak partly from Haxthausen, i. 63, partly from what I 
heard myself. I cannot leave this part of the subject without 
a word on those remarkable essays to which, under the name of 
" Quelques Mots par un Chretien Orthodoxe," I have so often 
referred, and to which the Letters of "Ignotus" in the Union 
Chretienne, 1860, Nos. 30, 33, 36, 37, 41, 42, may be added. It is 
with much regret that I have learned, since writing the above, 
that their author's premature death in the course of last year has 
cut off all hope of confirming, by personal acquaintance, the 
impression left by his writings, and by the description of all 
who had ever conversed with him. M. Chamiakoff was a poet 
of an ardent temperament, and devoted to the ancient Orthodox 
traditions, which he regarded as the inestimable treasure of the 
Russian Church and nation. But, of alt the peculiarities of 
his writings, none is more striking than the manner in which 



Lect. XII. 



Conclusion. 



49 i 



and speech, never leaving his retirement, he yet has 
left behind him a circle of enthusiastic disciples, 
whose eyes flash and whose cheeks glow when they 
speak of him, and who still in their own way com- 
municate his methods of instruction. u Cicero," he 
used to say, "maintains that there is no system of 
" philosophy which is not based on some funda- 
" mental absurdity. I maintain, on the other hand, 
" that there is no widely propagated error which is 
" not based on some fundamental truth. See the 
" point of view from which any error has arisen. 
" Then, and then only, will you understand it." 

I have thus glanced at some of the leading charac- Conclusion, 
ters of the modern Church of Russia, and of its exist- 
ing various* tendencies. They will be enough to show 
that its inherent life has neither been choked by its 
own tenacity of ancient forms, nor strangled by the 
violence of Peter's changes. But what its future 
will be, who shall venture to conjecture? Will it be 
able now, in these its latter days, to cease from foreign 
imitations, Eastern or Western, and develope an ori- 
ginal genius and spirit of its own? Will it venture, 

he united this devotion to bis ancestral belief with a fearless 
spirit of inquiry both into ecclesiastical and sacred records. He 
was fully versed in German theology. His admiration of the 
character and learning of the late lamented Baron Bunsen was 
profound. He himself entered freely into the questions raised 
of late on Biblical criticism, yet he never wavered in his faith 
and practice as an " Orthodox Christian." " Are you not afraid 
of these German speculations ? " was the question by an English 
traveller to another Russian layman, equally devout and sincere. 
" Not for a moment," was the reply. " We have a singular gift 
of comprehending the ideas of others, and of amalgamating them 
with our own firm belief. I fear nothing, so long as we are true 
to ourselves." 



492 Peter the Great. Lect. XII. 

still retaining its elaborate forms of ritual, to use 
them as vehicles of true spiritual and moral edifica- 
tion for its people? Will it aspire, preserving the 
religious energy of its national faith, to turn that 
energy into the channel of practical social life, so 
as to cleanse, with overwhelming force, the corrup- 
tion and vice of its higher ranks, the deceit and rude 
intemperance of its middle and lower classes? The 
Russian clergy, as they recite the Nicene creed in the 
Communion, embrace each other with a fraternal kiss, 
in order to remind themselves and the congregation 
that the Orthodox Faith is never to be disjoined from 
Apostolical Charity. Is there a hope that this noble 
thought may be more adequately represented in their 
ecclesiastical development than it has been in ours ? 
Will Russia exhibit to the world the sight of a 
Church and people understanding, receiving, foster- 
ing, the progress of new ideas, foreign learning, free 
inquiry, not as the destruction, but as the fulfilment, 
of religious belief and devotion? Will the Churches 
of the West find that, in the greatest National Church 
now existing in the world, there is still a principle of 
life at work, at once more steadfast, more liberal, and 
more pacific, than has hitherto been produced either 
by the uniformity of Rome, or the sects of Pro- 
testantism? 

On the answer to these questions will depend the 
future history, not only of the Russian Church and 
Empire, but of Eastern Christendom, and, in a con- 
siderable measure, of Western Christendom also. 
The last word of Peter, struggling between life 
and death, was, as has been already described, Here- 



Lect. XII. 



Conclusion. 



493 



after. What more awful sense the word may have 
expressed to him at that moment we know not. Yet 
it is not beneath the solemnity of that hour to imagine 
that even then his thoughts leaped forward into the 
unknown future of his beloved Kussia; and to us, 
however curious its past history, a far deeper interest 
is bound up in that one word, which we may, with- 
out fear, transfer from the expiring Emperor to the 
Empire and the Church which he had renewed, 
— " Hereaeter." 



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In the following Table I have given the chief events in 
the history of the Eastern Church. The references, where 
necessary, have been made to such works as, in each case, 
contained the most precise and copious statement of the 
original authorities. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



X.j), Early Period. 

33 "I All the early Churches, except those of North Africa, 
to j- belong, in the first instance, to the Eastern Church : 
100. J Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, and even 
those of Rome and Caul. 
Legends of the foundation of the more remote Eastern 
Churches, — of Edessa by S. Thaddeus, and of India by 
S. Thomas. 

135. Change of the see of Jerusalem into the see of ^Elia 
Capitolina. 

180 "I Catechetical school of Alexandria. Pantaenus, fl80. 
254 J Clemens ' t 213 - Origen, f 254. 
260. Sabellius in Egypt. 

269. Council of Antioch condemns the Homoousion and the 

doctrines of Paul of Samosata. 
302. Foundation of the Church of Armenia. 
306. Melitian schism in Egypt. 
309. Antony in Egypt (founder of Monachism). 
312. Conversion of Constantine. 



Foundation of Eastern Empire. Period of the Councils. 

315. Eusebius of Csesarea. f cir. 342. 
318. Arius in Egypt. 

Foundation of the Church of Georgia, or Iberia, by Nina. 
(Wiltzch's Geography of the Church, 244.) 
325. Council of Niccea [First General]. 

k k 2 



500 



Chronological Table. 



A.D. 

325. Condemnation of Arians and Melitians ; settlement of the 

Paschal controversy. 
Jacob of Nisibis. f 350 [according to others 338 at the 

former siege of Nisibis]. 
Athanasius. f 373. 

326. Foundation of the Church of Abyssinia. Pilgrimage of 

Helena to Palestine. 
330. Foundation of Constantinople. 
336. Dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
337 Death of Constantine. Athanasian controversy ; the 
to L West Orthodox under Constans, the East Arian or 
360. J Semi- Arian under Constantius. 

362. Council of Alexandria avoids the division of Hypostasis 
and Ousia. 

376. Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths. 

355. Basil (of Csesarea). f 3 ? 8 - 

Ephrem Syrus (of Edessa). f 378. 

351. Cyril (of Jerusalem), f 386. 

360. Gregory (Nazianzen). f 389. 

370. Gregory (of Nyssa). | 395. 

379. Theodosius, Emperor, f 395 - 

Suppression of Paganism in the East. 

381. Council of Constantinople [Second General]. Close of 
Arian controversy in the Eastern Church. Condemna- 
tion of Macedonius and Apollinarius. Elevation of the 
Bishop of Constantinople to the second rank, after next 
Bishop of Rome. Additions to the Nicene Creed (?). 

385. Controversy on the opinions of Origen, raised by Theo- 
philus of Alexandria. 

367. Epiphanius. f 403. 

390. Chrysostom. f 407. 

391. Destruction of the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria. 
410. Theodore (of Mopsuestia). f 429. 

431. Council of Ephesus [Third General]. Condemnation of 

Nestorians, and of Coelestius and Pelagius [but as fol- 
lowers of Nestorius]. Prohibition of any new Creed. 

432. Separation of Nestorian Churches (in Chaldaea and India). 
415. Cassian (the semi-Pelagian) of Bethlehem and Marseilles. 

f435. 

412. Cyril (of Alexandria). f444. 
447. Legend of the Seven Sleepers. (Gibbon, c. 33.) 
449. Second Council of Ephesus (Latrocinium) supports Eu- 
tyches. 



Chronological Table. 501 



A.D. 

451. Council of Chalcedon [Fourth General]. Condemnation 



of Eutyches. Promulgation of Nicene Creed in its pre- 
sent form. Recognition of the five Patriarchs : of Rome, 
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. 



460. J name of " Apostolic Canons." 

Foundation of the Monastery of Studius at Constantinople. 
(Evagrius, ii. 11.) 

461. Simeon Sty lites (the Elder), f 461. 

Separation of the Monophysite Churches of Egypt, Sy- 
ria, and Armenia from the Church of Constantinople. 
(Gieseler, 2nd per. § ii. c. 2.) • 
cir. 1 Dionysius the Areopagite (spurious writings of). (Gieseler, 
460. J 2nd Period, § ii. c. 2.) 

482. Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno [an attempt to reconcile 
the Orthodox and the Monophysites]. (Gieseler, ibid. ; 
Gibbon, c. 47.) 
Timotheus (" the Cat ") at Alexandria. (Gieseler, ibid.) 
Peter (the Fuller), at Antioch (Gieseler, ibid.), introduced 
the formula " God was crucified." 
491. Act of toleration for the Monophysites by the Emperor 
Anastasius. 

518. Repeal of the Henoticon by the Emperor Justin I. (Giese- 
ler, 2nd per. § ii. c. 2.) 

527. Justinian, Emperor. (Gibbon, c. 45.) f 565. 

Foundation of the Convent and Archbishopric of Mount 
Sinai. (Robinson's Biblical Researches, i. 184.) 

529. Close of the schools of Athens, and extinction of the 
Platonic theology. (Gibbon, c. 40.) 

532. Building of the Church of S. Sophia. 

544. ' Edict of Justinian condemning Origen and the " Three 



Chapters " (i.e. the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, 



Ibas of Edessa, and Theodoret). (Gieseler, ibid.) 
545. Organisation of the Monophysite Churches of Syria and 
Mesopotamia by Jacobus Zanzalus or Baraddus of Edessa 
(f 578), hence the name of Jacobites. (Gieseler, ibid.) 
Monophysites in Arabia. (Ibid.) 

Nubians converted by the Coptic Church. (Ibid. c. 6.) 
553. Second Council of Constantinople [Fifth General]. Con- 
firmation of the Edict of Justinian. 
570. Birth of Mahomet. 

587. John (the Faster), Patriarch of Constantinople, assumes 



440. Theodoret. f 456. 




collection of Greek ecclesiastical law under the 



K K 3 



502 



Chronological Table. 



A.D. 

the title of CEcumenical Patriarch against the remon- 
strances of Gregory the Great. (Gieseler, ii. 2, 3 ; 
Gibbon, c. 45.) 

589. Third Council of Toledo. Extinction of Arianism in 
Spain. Adoption of the Nicene or Constantinopoli- 
tan Creed into the Western Liturgy. Insertion of 
the words " Filioque." Beginning of the rupture be- 
tween the Eastern and Western Churches, on the 
Procession of the Holy Ghost. (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 7.) 
Formal separation of the Armenian Church from Constan- 
tinople, at the Council of Dwin. 

565. The collection of Canons of the Councils, by John 
Scholasticus (f 578), combined with the ecclesiastical 
laws of Justinian, and formed into the ecclesiastical code 
of the Greek Church under the name of Nomo-Canon. 

616. Rise of Monothelite Heresy in Syria ; supported by Ser- 
gius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope Honorius. 
(Gieseler, ii. 3, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2.) 



Struggle with Mahometanism. 

622. Flight of Mahomet to Medina. {Hegira.) 

628. Reconquest of Jerusalem from the Persians by the Em- 
peror Heraclius. Institution of the Festival of the 
Cross, Sept. 14. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 1.) 

632. Death of Mahomet. 

634. Conquest of Syria by Omar. 

636 "| Nestorian Missions as far as India and China. (Gieseler, 
to > ii. 2, 6 ; (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 8.) 

781. J Theological College at Nisibis. (Ibid.) 

638. " Ecthesis" of Heraclius. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2.)"] On Mono- 

640. Conquest of Egypt by Amrou. j-thelite con- 

648. " Type " of Constans II. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2.) J troversy. 

651. Conquest of Persia by Othman. 

660. Death of Ali, and schism of the Shiahs. 

Foundation of the Paulician sect in Armenia by Constan- 
tine (f 684). (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 8.) 

668. Theodore of Tarsus (the Greek), Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, first organiser of the English Church. (Robert- 
son, vol. ii. 1, 3 ; Gieseler, ii. 3, 3.) 

676. Foundation of the Maronites by Maro (| 707). (Gieseler, 
ii, 3, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2.) 



Chronological Table. 



503 



A.D. 

680. Third Council of Constantinople [Sixth General]. Con- 
demnation of the Monothelites and of Pope Honorius. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2.) 

690. Persecution of the Paulicians. (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 8.) 

692. Council "in Trullo" (in the vaulted chamber at Constan- 
tinople), called Quinisextum, or ttevtektt) ; as completing 
the Fifth and Sixth General Councils on ecclesiastical 
regulations. The present restrictions on the marriage 
of the Eastern clergy established ; i. e. no marriage to 
take place after ordination, and no Bishop to be married. 
This is the First Eastern Council repudiated by the 
West. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2. 1, 9.) 

707. Conquest of North Africa by the Arabs. 

712. Conquest of Spain. 



Iconoclastic Controversy. 

726. Beginning of the Iconoclastic controversy by the Edict 
of Leo Isauricus. 
John of Damascus (Chrysorrhoas, Mansur), the last Greek 
Father, chief theologian of the East and supporter of 
the sacred pictures, f 760. (Gieseler, iii. 1, 1 ; Ro- 
bertson, vol. ii. 1, 4.) 

730. Annexation (by Leo Isauricus) of Calabria, Sicily, and 
Illyricum to "the Patriarchate of Constantinople. 

732. Final repulse of the Mussulmans from the West by Charles 
Martel. 

754. Fourth Council of Constantinople. Condemnation of 
sacred pictures. (Gieseler, iii. 1, 1.) 

787. Second Council of Niccea [Seventh General]. Sanction 
of the veneration of sacred pictures. Its decrees con- 
demned by Charlemagne in the Council of Frankfort 
(790). (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 7.) (Its oecumenical cha- 
racter is well discussed in Neale, Introd. ii. 132.) 

790. Theodore Studita, defender of the sacred pictures, f 826. 

791. The " Filioque" inserted in the Creed at the Council of 

Friuli. (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 7.) 
809. The "Filioque" inserted at the Council of Aix la Chapelle. 
(Gieseler, iii. 1, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 7.) 
Athanasian Creed now first appears in France. (Ibid.) 
815. Pictures again suppressed. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 1.) 
835. Spread of the Paulicians into Asia Minor. Cruel perse- 
cution of them by Theodora. (Gibbon, chap. 54.) 
k k 4 



Chronological Table. 



A.D. 

842, Pictures again sanctioned. Orthodox Sunday instituted. 

(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 1.) 
848. Preaching of Constantine (Cyril) among the Khozars 

(Crimea). (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2, 

note c.) 

858. Photius, the chief theologian of the East (f 891), ap- 
pointed Patriarch of Constantinople [by Caesar Bardas, 
regent during the minority of Michael III.] in the place 
of Ignatius (j" 878), who is supported by Pope Nicho- 
las I. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) 



Conversion of Sclavonic Tribes, and Struggle with See of Rome. 

858. Restoration of heathen literature by Csesar Bardas. (Hal- 
lam, Mid. Ages, e. ix. pt. 2 ; Gibbon, cap. 53.) 

860. Foundation of the Churches of Bulgaria and Moravia by 
Constantine (Cyril) (t 868) and Methodius (f 900), 
from Constantinople. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3 ; Gieseler, 
iii. 2,1.) 

Bogoris baptized. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 
862. Invention or improvement of Sclavonic alphabet by Cyril 
and Methodius. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4.) 
Foundation of Russian Empire by Ruric. 

866. First Russian expedition to Constantinople. Baptism of 

Oskold and Dir. 
Photius endeavours to reunite the Armenian with the 
Orthodox Church. 

867. Photius, in Council at Constantinople, deposes and excom- 

municates the Pope. The acts of this Council are an- 
nulled in a Council at Rome, and a Council at Constan- 
tinople, called by the Latin Church the Eighth General 
Council (but not acknowledged by the Eastern Church), 
by which Photius is anathematised. The controversy 
is embroiled by the rival claims of Constantinople 
(through both Photius and Ignatius) and of Rome to 
the newly converted kingdom of Bulgaria. (Robertson, 
vol. ii. 2, 3, &c.) 

870. Conversion of heathen Sclavonians and Mainotes in Greece. 

(Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) 

871. Temporary conversion of Bohemia by Methodius. (Ro- 

bertson, vol. ii. 2, 4 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 1.) 

878. Photius, on Ignatius's death, restored to the Patriarchate 

(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 

879. A Council at Constantinople reverses that of 867. (Ibid. 



Chronological Table. 



505 



A.D. 

880. Use of Sclavonic in Church services. (Robertson, vol. ii. 
2, 3 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 1.) 

883. Mission of Alfred to the Christians of S. Thomas. (Gib- 
bon, c. 47.) 

886. Photius is deposed by Leo (the Wise) ; j dies in exile, 891. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 
pThe Macedonian Emperors, Basil, Leo, Alexander, Con- 
I stantine (Porphyrogennetos), favour learning. 
I Bibliotheca of Photius. (Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) Lives of the 
^ o J Saints, by Symeon Metaphrastes of Constantinople 
886. 1 (t 975), Annals of Alexandria, by Eutychius of Alex- 
andria (| 940), commentary by (Ecumenius (950), 
Symeon Theologus (of Constantinople) (990). (Gieseler, 
I iii. 2, 2 ; Gibbon, c. 53). 
Description of the Empire, by Constantine (Porphyrogen- 
netos). (Gibbon, c. 53.) 
955. Conversion of the Russian Princess Olga. (Robertson, vol. 
ii. 2, 7.) 

963 "J Annexation of Naples and Sicily to the Greek Em- 
to r pire by Nicephorus and John Zimisces. (Gibbon, c. 

975. J 52.) 

976. Settlement of the Paulicians in Bulgaria and at Philippo- 

polis, whence they spread into Europe. (Gibbon, c. 54 ; 
and Gieseler, iii. 2, 3.) 

988. Conversion of Vladimir, and foundation of the Church of 
Russia. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 7 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) 
Controversy respecting the use of leavened bread by the 
Eastern, and of unleavened by the Western, Church. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 3, 1.) 

1018. Bulgaria finally annexed to the Byzantine Empire. (Ro- 
bertson, vol. ii. 3, ad fin.) 

1020. Michael Psellus (the younger), " the Prince of Philo- 
sophers. | 1101. (Gieseler, iii. 3, Append. I.) 

1050. Invasion of the Greek Empire by the Seljukian Turks. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4.) 

1054. The Greek provinces of Apulia, on their annexation by the 
Normans to the see of Rome, are warned in a pastoral 
letter of Michael Cerularius (Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople) against the practices of the Latin Church. Ex- 
communication by the Pope, Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), 
laid on the altar of S. Sophia (16th July), and answered 
by Michael. Final rupture between Eastern and West- 
ern Churches. (Robertson, vol. ii. 3, 1.) 



506 



Chronological Table. 



1065. Conquest of Armenia and Georgia by the Turks. (Gibbon, . 
c. 57.) 

1074. Conquest of Asia Minor. 

1076. Conquest of Jerusalem. (Ibid.) 

1089. S. David III., King of Georgia.— Flourishing period of 

the Georgian Church. (Neale, i. 63.) 
1096.] Passage of the Latins in the first, second, and third Cru- 
1147- y sades through the Greek Empire. (Gibbon, cc. 58, 

1189. J 59.) 

1096. Occupation of the Holy Places of Palestine by the Latins. 
1070. Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, commentator, f 
1112. 

Euthymius (Zigabenus), of Constantinople, j" 1118. 
Nicetus (Acominatus), historian and theologian, f 1216. 

(Gieseler, iii. 3. Appendix I.) 
1182. Maronites join the Latin Church. (Robertson, vol. ii. 3, 
' 2 ; Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I. and note.) 
Council of Bari : called to consider the relations of the 

Latin Church to the Greeks of Apulia. Anselm present, 

hence his treatise " De Processione S. Spiritus. Contra 

Grcecos." 

1180. Theodore Balsamon. j" 1204. (Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I.) 

1190. Eustathius of Thessalonica. f 1198. Commentary on the 

Iliad. Favourite of the Comneni. 

1204. Fourth Crusade. Occupation of Constantinople by the 
Latins. (Gibbon, c. 60.) Decline of the Greek lan- 
guage and literature. (See Hallam, "Middle Ages," 
c. ix. part 2.) 
Greek Emperors retire to Nicsea. 

1240. Invasion of Russia by the Tartars. 

1261. Constantinople recovered by the Greeks under Michael 
Palseologus. (Gibbon, cc. 61, 62; Gieseler, iii. 3, 
Appendix I.) 

1240. Rise of the Ottoman Turks. (Gibbon, 64.) 

1270. Last Crusade. 



Final Struggle with Borne, and with Mahometanism. 



1260. Thomas Aquinas. Opusc. contra Grcecos. (Gieseler, ibid.) 
1274. Temporary reconciliation between the Emperor Michael 



Chronological Table. 



A.D. 

and Pope Martin IV. (Gibbon, c. 62 ; Gieseler, iii. 
3, Appendix I.) 

1260. Abulpharagius, historian, Jacobite Patriarch of the East, 
t 1286. 

1291. Expulsion of Latins from Constantinople. 

1292. Armenians reconciled for a time to the Latin Church. 

(Gieseler, iii. 4, Appendix II.) 
1300. S. Stephen Dushan, King of Servia. Patriarchate of 
Servia. (Neale, i. 70.) 
Ebed- Jesus, Nestorian Theologian of Nisibis. j 1318. 
1320. Conquest of Asia Minor by the Ottoman Turks. 
1339. Attempt of the Greek Emperors to effect a reconciliation 

with the Popes. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1341. Passage of the Ottomans into Europe. (Ibid. c. 64.) 
1341 "| Controversy on the uncreated light of Tabor. (Ibid.) 
to >Barlaam condemned, joins the Latin Church. (Gieseler, 
1351. J iii. 4, Appendix I.) 

Barlaam, friend of Petrarch, and first restorer of Homer 
to the West. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1363. Leo Pilatus friend of Boccaccio. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1396. Battle of Nicopolis. Defeat of Christians by Bajazet. 
(Gibbon, c. 64.) 
The Emperor Manuel visits France and England, (Gibbon, 
c. 66.) 

1415. Manuel Chrysoloras. (f at Constance.) (Gibbon, ibid.) 
Theodore Gaza. (Ibid.) 
Demetrius Chalcondyles. (Ibid.) 
1450. George of Trebizond. f 1486 - (Ibid.) 

John Argyropulus. (Ibid.) 
1420. Nicephorus, author of Ecclesiastical History, f 1450. 
1438. The Emperor John Palseologus visits Italy to effect a re- 
union. Council of Ferrara, Florence. (Gibbon, 66.) 
1440. Isidore of Moscow. Bessarion of Nice. Mark of Ephesus. 
Reunion (July 6th) dissolved at Constantinople and Mos- 
cow. (Gibbon, cc. 66, 67.) 
1444. Nov. 10. Victory of the Turks over the Hungarians 

and the Greeks at Varna. (Gibbon, c. 67.) 
1453. May 29. Capture of Constantinople, and fall of the Greek 
Empire. (Gibbon, c. 68.) 
Gennadius, last independent Patriarch. Abdicated 1459. 
1477. Expulsion of Tartars from Russia. 



Chronological Table. 



^ ^ Modern Condition of the Eastern Church. 

1525 — 1550. Portuguese mission to Abyssinia. (Gibbon, c. 47.) 
1559 — 1632. Jesuit mission to Abyssinia. (Ibid.) 
1599—1663. Portuguese mission to Christians of S. Thomas. 
(Gibbon, c. 47.) 

1 582. Patriarchate of Moscow established by J eremiah, Patriarch 
of Constantinople. (Mouravieff, c. 6.) 

1590. " Uniats," or Catholic Greeks of Poland. (Neale, i. 56.) 

1600. CyrilLucar, Greek Patriarch of Alexandria (1602). Adopts 
Protestant views (1612). Corresponds with Archbishop 
Abbot (1616). Patriarch of Constantinople (1621). 
Corresponds with Archbishop Laud (1627). Presents 
the Alexandrian MS. to Charles I. (1628). Murdered 
(1638). (Neale, Alex. Church, ii. 356-456). 

1613. Expulsion of Poles from Eussia. 

1642. Council of Jassy (or Constantinople). Condemnation of 
Cyril Lucar. " Orthodox confession of Peter Mogila." 

1672. Council of Bethlehem. Condemnation of Calvinism. 

1679. Migration of the Greeks of Servia under Arsenius Tcher- 
novitch, Metropolitan of Servia, into Hungary, and 
establishment at Carlovitz. (Christian Remembrancer, 
xxxv. 35.) 

1764. Patriarchate of Moscow suppressed. 

1765. Patriarchate of Servia suppressed. (Neale, i. 71.) 
1801. Annexation of Georgia to Russia. (Neale, i. 65.) 
1821. War of Greek independence against Turkey. 

1833. Church of Greece independent of Constantinople. (Neale, 
i. 60.) 

1839. Reunion of Polish Uniats to the Russian Church. (Mou- 
ravieff, 431.) 



The dates specially belonging to Russian History will be found 
at the end of Lectures IX. X. XL XII. 



INDEX. 



[The Index does not apply to the Introductory Lectures or the Chronological Tables.] 



Abgarus, 6. 

Absolution, 44 ; of Constantine, 239. 
Abyssinia, Church of, 12—14, 32, 53 ; 

its foundation, 269. 
Acesius, 123, 203, 204. 
Ait-allaha, 120. 
Alexander I. of Russia, 20. 
Alexander the Great, 16. 
Alexander of Alexandria, 113, 209, 

264. 

Alexander of Byzantium, 123, 209. 

Alexander Nevsky, 371. 

Alexandria, Church of, 11, 12, 172, 183, 

268; scenes at, 274, 283. 
Alexandrian theology, 27. 
Alexis of Russia, 23, 429, 437, 432 ; 

death of, 446. 
Ambrose of Moscow, 486. 
Ancyra, Council of, 101. 
Andrew, S., 347. 
Antioch, 9; Patriarchs of, 9. 
Antony the Roman, 378. 

the Hermit, 29, 264, 271. 
Apocryphal Gospels, 311. 
Aquinas, Thomas, 27. 
Ararat, 4, 8. 

Arianism, its political importance, 71, 
72 ; theological importance, 73, 74 ; 
its dogmatism, 96 ; its polytheism, 
96 ; its violence, 98, 281. 

Arias Montanus, 72. 

Ariminum, Council of, 25. 

Aristaces, 120, 201. 

Arius, 118, 152 ; his banishment, 171 ; 
his restoration, 250 ; his death, 
252. 

Armenia, Church of, 7, 8, 21, 41, 120, 
176. 

Art, absence of, 37. 331, 

Asceticism, 30. 

Assemanni, 10 

Athanasian Creed, 62, 290. 

Athanasius, 11, 22, 29 ; his appearance, 
263 ; at the Council of Niceea, 114, 
160, 162, 189 ; his history, 263, &c; 
contra mundum, 279 ; his character, 
284, &c. ; Festal Letters, 183. 



Athos, 4, 16. 
Augustine, 27. 
Auxanon, 123. 

Babylon, Patriarchs of, 7. 
Bahari, 310. 

Baptism, immersion, 34 ; on deathbed, 

252, 286. 
Basil of Csesarea, 355. 

of Moscow, 395. 
Bauealis, Church of, ] 1 5. 
Beards, 483. 

Bible, study of, in the East, 46 ; trans- 
lation of, 369 ; contrasts with the 
Koran, 313, 316—318; vernacular 
translations of, 367, 417. 

Bishops, jurisdiction of, 191 ; consecra- 
tion of, 192 ; translation of, 174. 

Buddhist Councils, 79. 

Bulgaria, Church of, 18, 19, 352, 369. 

Bunsen, 490. 

Burnet, his intercourse with Peter the 
Great, 461, 457, 462. 

Csesarea, 195. 
Cairo, 11. 

Calendar, Greek and Latin, 33; alter- 
ation of Russian, 482. 

Canon of Scripture, 190. 

Canons of Nicsea, apocryphal, 189 ; ge- 
nuine, 191. 

Catholic, the name of, 24. 

" Catholic Greeks," 5. 

Celibacy of the Clergy, 197. 

Chalcedon, Council of, 8. 10, 21, 70, 80, 
81, 87, 175. 

Chamiakoff, 490. 

" Christian," name of, 9 ; for Russian 

peasants, 398. 
Chrysostom, 9, 27, 28, 29, 32, 283 ; 

prayer of, 69. 
Clergy, power of, 43 ; marriage of, 47 ; 

celibacy of, 197. 
Confirmation, 34, 35, 482. 
Constantia, 168, 169, 237 ; genealogy 

of, 261 ; her death, 250. 



5io 



Index. 



Constantine, his appearance, 219; his 
character, 217, 220, 225 ; his conver- 
sion, 222 ; his religion, 226 ; his 
Church policy, 154, 230 ; his letter to 
Alexander, 100 ; entrance into the 
Council of Nicsea, 140 ; speech, 142 ; 
rebuke to the Bishops, 148 ; his re- 
ception of the Creed, 162, 167 ; his 
attack on Arius, 166, 172 ; speech to 
Acesius, 205 ; farewell address, 205 ; 
his devotions and preaching, 253 ; 
his domestic tragedy, 254, &c ; Do- 
nation of, 240 ; baptism and death, 
252, &c. ; funeral and tomb, 257. 

Constantinople, 17, 21, 31, 32, 62, 345, 
356, 360 ; foundation of, 243, &c. ; 
its position in Church history, 248 ; 
Patriarchs of, 248 ; Council of, 21, 
70, 174; influence of, 423. 

Coptic Church, 10, 11, 12 ; represented 
by Athanasius, 263, 272. 

Corinthians, spurious Epistles to and 
from, 8. 

Councils, General, period of, 21, 66,69; 

deliberative, 77 ; representative, 79 ; 

imperial, 80 ; fallible, 85 ; moderating 

90; places of meeting, 102. 
Creed of Constantinople, 174. 
of Eusebius, 1 55. 
of Nicasa, 163; its finality, 173, 

174; its character and use, 213. 492. 
Crispus, murder of, 237 ; statue of, 

243. 

Crusades, 24, 31, 306. 
Cyril Lucar, 410. 

of Alexa ndria, 11, 292. 

of Bulgaria, 10, 346, 369. 
Czar of Russia, 378; his coronation, 
380. See Emperor. 

Damascenus, John, 9, 27. 
Dancing, part of ritual, 12. 
Danubian provinces, 12. 
Deacons, 195. 

Demetrius, the child, 405 — 407. 
Demetrius of Rostoff, 485. 

of the Don, 402. 
Dervishes, 397. 

Dionysius of the Troitzka, 406. 

Dnieper, 5, 347. 

Don, 5 ; battle of the, 403. 

Druses, 10. 

Dushan, Stephen, 19. 

East, the, 1 54. 

Eastern Church, divisions of, 3 — 20 ; 
history of, 21 — 23; characteristics of, 

Edessa, 6. 

Emperor, position of, 45 ; as convening 
Councils, 80. See Czar. 



England, Church of, 7 ; its connection 

with the East, 59 ; with Peter the 

Great, 453, 461, 462. 
Ephesus, Council of, 6, 21, 175, 176. 
Erasmus, 73. 
Ethiopia. See Abyssinia. 
Eucharist administered to infants, 36 ; 

doctrine of, 42. 
Eusebius of Cassarea, 22, 90, 91, 119, 

134, 144, 155, 164, 167, 182, 194, 

223, 251. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia, 122, 157, 168, 
194, 256. 

Eustathius of Antioch, 117, 144, 194. 
Eustocius, 250, 256. 
Eustorgius, 127. 

Eausta, murder of, 237, 238, 242. 
Erench invasion of Russia, 342. 

Gardiner, conversion of Colonel, 224. 
George, S., legend of, 288. 
Germanus, 15. 
Greece, Church of, 1 8. 
Greek Church, 15, 16, 17. 
Gregory Nazianzen, 120; on Athana- 
sius, 278, 285 ; on Councils, 95, 121. 
Gregory the Illuminator, 8, 120, 121. 

Helena, 219, 237, 238, 249, 250. 
Hermits of the East, 30 ; of Russia, 
393. 

Hermogenes of Caesarea, 122, 164. 

of Russia, 406. 
Holy Places in Palestine, 249. 
Homoousion, 157, 167, 169. 
Hooker on Athanasius, 277 ; on Ivan 

the Terrible, 383. 
Horsey, Sir Jerome, his account of Ivan 

IV., 383. 

Hosius of Cordova, 129, 144, 159, 161, 

163, 239, 289. 
Hungary, 19, 307. 
Hypatius of Gangra, 201. 
Hypostasis, 161, 164, 299. 

Iconoclasts, 37. 
Ignatius, 9. 

Immaculate Conception, 312. 
Incarnation, doctrine of, 215, 295. 
Innocent of Kamtschatka, 489. 
Ivan III., 402, 411. 

Ivan IV. the Terrible, 382, 385, 391, 
396, 400, 411. 

Jacobites, 9. 

James of Nisibis, 119, 172, 198, 203. 
Jaroslaff (the town), 448. 
Jaroslaff I., 321. 

Jerusalem, church of Holy Sepulchre at, 
251, 438 ; Patriarchs of, 9, 119, 195. 



Index. 



Jerusalem, New, monastery of, 436, 

Jewish influences, 13, 82, 411 

John the Persian, 121. 

Joseph, apocryphal history of, 8. 

Jowett, Professor, on the style of S. 

Paul, 328. 
Judith, Book of, 90. 
Justinian, 45, 69. 

Kanobin, 10. 

Kaye, Bishop, 73, 131, 135, 160. 
Khudr, El, 313. 
Kieff, 4, 347, 393. 
Kneeling forbidden, 156. 
Knox, Alexander, 296. 
Koran, 305, 315, &c. 

Laity, independence of, 45, 333. 
Lateran palace and church, 242. 
Lebanon, cedars of, 4, 10. 
Legends, use of, 92, 209, 211. 
Leontius of Cses'area, 121. 

Macarius of Antioch, 415. 

of Jerusalem, 119. 
Mahomet, 22 ; his biography, 305. 
Mahometanism, 303, &c. ; in relation to 

Eastern Christianity, 310, &c. 
Marcellus of Ancyra, 125, 286. 
Maronites, 9, 10. 
Marriage of clergy allowed, 197. 
Melitian controversy, 185, &c. 
Methodius, 369. 

Metrophanes of Byzantium, 123, 209. 

of Voronege, 485. 
Metropolitan, rights of, 192. 
Metropolitans of Russia, 388. 
Milman, Dean, 26, 38, 85 
Milvian Bridge, battle of the, 225. 
Missions, 40; of Constantinople, 345. 
Moldavia, 19. 

Monasteries of Russia, 399. 
Monasticism, 29, 30. 
Monophysites, 9, 10, 11, 272. 
Monothelites, 9, 26. 

Moscow, 376; cathedral of the Assump- 
tion, 388, 440 ; cathedral of Arch- 
angel, 382 ; of S. Basil, 395; Council 
of, 441. 

Mouravieff, Andrew, his history, 378. 

Nestor of Kieff, 336, 349. 

Nestorians, 6, 49, 310. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 74, 281. 

Niceea, city of, 94, 95; selection of, 

101 ; its name, 103 ; its honours, 

207. 

Niceea, Council of, its importance, 22, 
70, 76 ; its Oriental character, 67, 
68; authorities for its history, 67, 90; 
occasion of, 96; date of, 103; num- 



bers of, 08; character of, 109, 111; 

places of meeting, 111, 139. 
Nicene Creed. See Creed of Nicsea. 
Nicon, his appearance, 413; Patriarch 

of Moscow, 414; his reforms, 415 ; 

history, 428; his death, 448; his 

tomb, 450. 
Nicholas of Myra, 137, 153. 

of Plescow, 396. 
Nijni-Novgorod, 41. 
Nile, river, 4. 
Novatians, 199, 200, 203. 

(Ecumenical Synod, 80. 
Organs, 32. 
Origen, 27. 

" Orthodox," name of, 24. 
Orthodox Sunday, 24. 
Orthodoxy, Athanasius founder of, 
291 ; Nicene Creed bulwark of, 215. 

Papacy, absence of in the East, 47; con- 
demned by the East, 53; foundation 
of its power, 240. 

Paphnutius, 117, 188, 197, 199, 203. 

Paul of Constantinople, 209. 
of Neocassarea, 119. 

Paulicians, sect of, 352. 

Pelagianism, 28. 

Persecution, 40, 416. 

Peter the Great, of Russia, 238; his ap- 
pearance, 454 ; his character, 455, 
&c; his connection with the Church, 
459, &c; his death, 464. 

Peter of Alexandria, 186, 286. 

Petersburg, foundation of, 243, 455. 

Philaret the Patriarch, 408. 

the Metropolitan, 322, 490. 

Philip, S., of Moscow, 391. 

Philostorgius, 91. 

Pictures, sacred, 361. 

Plato, Archbishop, 487. 

Poland, 24, 41. 

Polish invasion of Russia, 404. 

Pope, name of 11, 16, 113. 

Potammon, 117. 

Prayers for the dead, 41. 

Preaching, in Mahometanism, 320; in 
Russia, 417. 

Prester John, 6, 121. 

Prideaux, Dean, 309. 

Priesthood, in Mahometanism, 327. 

Procession of the Holy Ghost, 28, 41, 
62, 290. 

Purgatory, 41. 

Pusey, Dr., on the Councils, 83; on the 
style of the Prophets, 328. 

Raitzen in Hungary, 9. 
Rascolniks, 471. 



5 I2 



Index. 



Reformation, 73, 249;* how far followed 

in the East, 410. 
Representative character of Councils, 

79. 

Resignation in Mahometanism, 334. 
Romanoff dynasty, election of, 407. 
Romaic, 17. 

Rome, antipathy of Constantine to, 234, 
238. 

Russia, character of, 339; Church of, 
19, 336, &c. ; foundation of, 344 ; 
name of Russia, 347, 348. 

Russian language, 369. 

Sabbath, 12. 

Sacrifices in Mahometanism, 327. 
Saints, veneration of, 328. 
Sclavonic race, 18. 
Secundus, 171. 

Sergius, founder of the Troitzka, 402. 

Servia, Church of, 19. 

Seven Sleepers, 312. 

Sinai, convent of, 4. 

Socrates, the historian, 91. 

Sophia, S., 18, 357. 

Sozomen, 91. 

Spain, Church of, 72. 

Spyridion, 124, 125, 126, 132. 

Standing in prayer, 32, 195. 

Starovers in Russia, 472. 

Stephen Yavorsky, 468. 

Subscription to the Nicene Creed, 167, 

168, 169 ; to the Nicene Canons, 

201 ; to Creeds, 237. 
Sun, worship of the, by Constantine, 227. 



Sunday, 227. 
Sylvester, 128, 208, 240. 
Simeon Polotsky, 446. 
Simeon Stylites, 31. 

Telemachus, 30. 

Temple, Dr., on the Creeds, 177. 
Thaddseus, 6. 
Thalia of Arius, 171. 
Theodore II., the Czar, 446. 
Theodoret, 87, 91. 

Theologian, example of, in Athanasius 

289, &c. 
Theology, 26. 

Theophanes Procopovitch, 465. 

Theophilus the Goth, 128. 

Thomas, S., Christians of, 7, 51. 

Travelling to Councils, mode of, 106. 

Trent, Council of, 76, 101. 

Troitzka monastery the, 400 ; siege of 
by the Poles, 406 ; refuge of Peter, 
460; German philosophy in, 490. 

Ulfilas, 71, 128, 369. 
Unction, extreme, 35. 

Victor and Vincentius, 128. 
Vladimir the Great, 350, 359. 
Vladimir Monomachus, 371. 
Voskresensky, monastery of, 437. 

Wallachia, 19. 

Zeyd, 310. 



THE END. 



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PLAN 

OF 

THE PATRIARCHAL CATHEDRAL OF MOSCOW 



LL 



PLAN OF THE PATRIARCHAL CATHEDRAL OF MOSCOW, 



(the uspensky church, or church of the repose or 

THE BLESSED VIRGIN,) 

IN WHICH THE METROPOLITANS AND PATRIARCHS ARE BURIED, AND IN 
WHICH THE CZARS ARE CROWNED. 




This Cathedral was built a.d. 1475 — 1479, by Aristotle of Bologna, under 
Ivan III., on the site of the original Church founded by Peter, the first Me- 
tropolitan, under Ivan I., a.d. 1325. For the general arrangements of Eastern 
Churches, see Neale, Introd. i. 175 — 216. 



EXPLANATION OF KEFEKENCES. 

A. " Iconostasis," or Screen for the Sacred a. a. a. a. Pictures of the Seven Councils. 

Pictures. 6. b. b. Pictures of the Last Judgment. 

B. " Bema," or Sanctuary. c. c. c. c. c. c. Pictures of the Life and Death 

C. C. " Soleas," or Choir. of the Virgin . 

D. Nave. d. d. d. d. Pictures of the Patriarchs and 

E. " Proaulion," or Porch. Fathers of the Church. 

F. F. F. F. Columns. 

1. Principal altar. 9. Shrine, containing sacred relics. 

2. Throne of the Archbishop, Metropolitan, 10. Tomb of S. Philip, Metropolitan. 

or Patriarch of Moscow. 11. Sacred Picture of our Lady of Vladimir. 

3. Side altar, dedicated to S. Demetrius of 12. Tomb of S. Jonah, Metropolitan. 

Thessalonica. 13. Tabernacle over " the Holy Tunic " pre- 

4. Side altar, dedicated to SS. Peter and sented to the Church by Philaret, 

Paul. Patriarch. 

These two side altars are separate pieces 14. Tombs of SS. Photius and Cyprian, 

of the one chief altar ; but placed here 15. The ancient throne of the Czar (called 
to allow of access to [them without " of Vladimir Monomachus " ). 

passing through the Sanctuary. 16. Throne of the Patriarch. 

5. Stairs leading to " the Chapel of the 17. Throne of the Empress. 

Blessed Virgin " in the cupola, where 18. Place of the platform on which the Em- 

the election of the Patriarchs took peror is crowned. 

place. 19. Tomb of Philaret, Patriarch. 

6. Stairs leading to the Sacristy, containing 20. Tomb of Hermogenes, Patriarch. 

the relics and curiosities of the Church. 21. Royal doors. 

7. Tomb of S. Theognostus, 7 Metropoli- 22. Platform in front of the Choir. (See Lec- 

8. Tomb of S. Peter, J tans. ture XI. p. 435.) 

The Pictures on the Altar Screen (A) are thus arranged. 

1. The highest compartment, the Patriarchs 5. The Sacred Pictures or Icons : 

ranged on each side of the Eternal a) " The Blessed Virgin," brought by 

Father. Vladimir from Kherson. 

2. The Prophets leaning towards the Virgin b) "The Saviour," sent by the Em- 

and Son. peror Manuel. 

3. Minute representations of the Life of the c) "Repose of the Blessed Virgin," 

Saviour. painted by Peter, the Metropo- 

4. Angels and Apostles on each side of the litan. 

Saviour. 

On the Doors (" the Eoyal Doors," so called because the Czar or Emperor 
passes through them on the day of his coronation) are painted the Four 
Evangelists, to represent ? that through this entrance come the Glad Tidings of 
the Eucharist. On each side of the Doors are represented (in ancient 
churches) Adam and the Penitent Thief, as the first fallen and the first re- 
deemed. 

On each side of the entrance to the Nave are (sometimes) represented the 
Publican and the Pharisee, as the two opposite types of worshippers. 
Where the porch is extended, it contains the Pagan Philosophers and Poets, 
each with a scroll in his hand containing a sentence anticipatory of the 
Gospel. 

The south side of the Church is always occupied by the Seven Councils. The 
north side either by the life of the Patron Saint of the Church (in the 
Uspenslcy Church, of the Virgin) or by the Parables. In the Donskoi Church 
all the events of the Old and New Testaments are represented. 

The Columns are painted with the figures of Martyrs. 



This Plan is inserted both as a general specimen of an Eastern Church, and 
specially for the illustration of Lectures IX. X. XI. 



Lb N 7-8 



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